A Walk in the Woods
by brihana25
Summary: A teacher takes his student to the mountain on a search for balance. A sensei takes his champion to the mountain on a search for answers. Their weekend in the woods becomes a battle for their lives, and to survive it, they will all have to rely on the last the last thing they ever expected to need. Each other. (WIP)
1. Chapter 1

**TITLE** : A Walk in the Woods

 **GENRE:** Gen

 **CATEGORY:** Friendship, Drama, H/C

 **RATING** : PG-13

 **SEASON** : post S1

 **CHARACTER(S):** Daniel LaRusso, Johnny Lawrence, Robby Keene, Miguel Diaz

 **PAIRING** : none

 **SUMMARY** : A teacher takes his student to the mountain on a search for balance. A sensei takes his champion to the mountain on a search for answers. It was inevitable they would run into each other, but they could never have imagined what they'd run up against. Their weekend in the woods becomes a battle for their lives, and to survive it, they will all have to rely on the last thing they ever expected to need. Each other.

 **DISCLAIMER:** Cobra Kai, its characters and situations, are copyright Hurwitz & Schlossberg Productions, Overbrook Entertainment and Sony Pictures Television. No infringement on, or challenge to, their status is intended. This piece of fiction was written strictly for the entertainment of other fans, and I am gaining no form of compensation for it.

 **MORE DISCLAIMERS:** This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or actual places and locations, is purely coincidental.

 **AUTHOR'S NOTES:** As always, with massive love and thanks to smooches to Switch842 for being the best alpha beta / bestie in the universe. Also, thanks to thatsweetbobbyfacetho and dream-beyond-the-fantasy for volunteering their time and talent as betas, and helping me do our beloved boys justice.

If you like this story, thank those three. If you think it sucks, blame me.

 **WARNINGS** : violence, strong language

* * *

 **Chapter One**

 _"Congratulations. You did what I always thought you could do. You won."_

 _"You got what you wanted, Johnny. You won. Congratulations."_

He won. He lost. He won. He couldn't tell the difference.

 _"I want him out of commission."_

 _"But, Sensei, I can beat this guy!"_

 _"Don't worry. I got this."_

"Miguel, no ..."

 _"I don't want him beaten."_

 _"Show him what you've got."_

 _"Out of commission."_

Images. Faces. Voices. One into another into the next.

 _"Cobra Kai is back where it belongs."_

 _"Illegal contact. You're disqualified!"_

 _"Disqualified for excessive and deliberate contact!"_

Past, present, past … fading and striking and fading again.

 _"That's one warning for unsportsmanlike contact."_

 _"Warning for illegal contact to the knee."_

No. Not again. He couldn't do it again. He couldn't be that again.

 _"What the hell are you thinking, man?"_

 _"What was I supposed to do, be a pussy?"_

"Robby … I'm sorry …"

 _"I found his weakness, Sensei, it's his shoulder."_

 _"Sweep the leg."_

"No."

 _"It's gotta be the right way."_

 _"You have a problem with that?"_

 _"We don't have to fight dirty."_

 _"There's nothing dirty about winning, Sensei."_

The right way. The wrong way. Which was which? Why couldn't he tell them apart?

 _"No, Sensei."_

 _"Back on top."_

 _"You taught me that."_

 _"No mercy."_

The lessons worked. Miguel wasn't him. And he wasn't Kreese.

 _"I have a student of my own."_

 _"I got this. No mercy."_

 _"Dad, back off!"_

 _"What the hell's wrong with you?"_

 _"You gotta be kiddin' me."_

 _"Everyone closed the book on us. They thought we were done."_

He wasn't him. He couldn't be. He wouldn't be.

 _"You alright, kid?"_

 _"How's the leg, son?"_

No. Miguel was better than that. Robby deserved better than that.

 _"It took you sixteen years."_

 _"No mercy."_

 _"I need you."_

 _"It's okay, Dad."_

 _"Somebody needs to be there for him."_

 _"You're alright, LaRusso."_

He hurt them. He hurt them all.

 _"But now they see that the real story's only just begun."_

 _"You're gonna regret this when it's over."_

 _"Yeah, right. Like this'll ever be over."_

He couldn't let it happen again. It had to end. He had to end it.

 _"Sorry, kid. I gotta go."_

 _"What about me? I need you."_

 _"Robby, I'm sorry."_

 _"It's okay, Dad."_

 _"Daniel, I'm sorry!"_

 _"My leg! It hurts!"_

He couldn't breathe. He hurt them. He wouldn't do it again.

 _"Finish him!"_

 _"You're alright, LaRusso."_

Blood … blood? On the ground. On his clothes. On his hands. Where was it coming from?

"LaRusso …"

 _"You're alright, LaRusso. It's okay. You're okay."_

Darkness. Pain. Blood. So much blood.

 _"Daniel, I'm sorry."_

"I'm sorry!"

Johnny Lawrence shot up in bed with the echoes of his own words still ringing in his ears. He let his head fall forward, pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, and tried to shove the fading images of the nightmare away.

"The fuck was that?" he asked the empty room.

He thought about going back to sleep, but the lightening sky outside his window, combined with the images still burned into his mind, convinced him it would be pointless. He turned on the mattress, hanging his legs over the side, and lifted his head. He reached for the beer before he remembered it wouldn't be there. The water he'd been keeping by his bed the past few months wasn't going to be nearly strong enough to help, but he drank it, anyway. At least it washed away the bitter bile that had risen into the back of his throat.

Nightmares were nothing new, but the one he'd just woken from was unlike any he'd ever had. He couldn't begin to explain it, not even to himself. The stuff with Kreese, with Miguel and Robby, that part made sense. Hardly a moment of the past five days had gone by without at least one of them, usually all three of them, occupying his thoughts.

He hadn't seen Kreese since the night the man had walked out of the grave and into his dojo. He hadn't seen Robby since he'd stood at the side of the mat, watched his student purposely hurt his own son, given Miguel some line about not fighting dirty and done nothing else to stop it. And though he'd seen Miguel every day since then, he hadn't really talked to him. Their conversations were about nothing more than form and technique – meaningless, pointless things that weren't going to help either one of them move forward. All of it weighed heavy on his mind and his heart. It didn't surprise him that he'd had nightmares about them every night.

But the one he'd just had was different. It was darker, heavier. Scarier. And all that stuff with LaRusso was new. When had he started featuring in Johnny's nightmares as anything other than the guy who ruined his life? What was with all the blood? And what the hell did it mean?

Sighing, he pushed himself to his feet and headed for the kitchen to find something to eat. As soon as he hit the doorway, he had a thought that stopped him in his tracks. He turned around, looked back at his bed, and then at the front door.

He was unsure if Kreese was a threat. He was so off-kilter around the man he barely knew his own name. All it had taken to erase 34 years of Johnny Lawrence being his own man was for John Kreese to walk through the door. Everything he'd thought and felt and believed was gone. He was the same frightened seventeen-year-old kid he'd been the night Kreese had nearly killed him. But even without knowing what Kreese had planned, without knowing if he was there as friend or foe, he knew he couldn't allow himself to trust him. He wouldn't let him start influencing his kids. He had to protect them from him, especially Miguel.

If Miguel's victory had taught Johnny anything, it was that he needed to rethink almost everything about how and what he'd taught his kids. If Kreese walked in and tried to take over while they were still in the headspace where _No Mercy_ was more a way of life than a motto, he'd lose them. He couldn't lose his kids. He'd already lost his son; he couldn't lose Miguel, too.

He couldn't think about Robby without thinking about LaRusso, though, and there was almost too much pain there to deal with. It hurt that his own efforts to save his son had been rejected, that LaRusso had once again succeeded where he had failed. Even so, in the end, Robby was safe, and that was the whole point, wasn't it? Of course, he wished he'd been the one to do it, but LaRusso had pulled him out of that life. He'd pulled him away from those two chuckleheads, from the petty crimes, from the drugs, from the life that was swallowing him whole. From all of it. LaRusso had saved him.

It hurt like hell to admit it. He was sure he'd never say it to anyone else, but that was the way it was. Johnny had screwed up Robby's entire life, and Daniel LaRusso had fixed it. Maybe … could he do the same for Miguel?

No, that wasn't the question, because he didn't doubt that he could. The real question was: could Johnny swallow his pride and make himself ask? Could he admit he was that big of a failure? If it was Miguel's soul on the line, just as it had been Robby's? If it was the only way to save him from Kreese's potential influence and Johnny's failures as a teacher? The only chance he had to turn him back into the sweet kid he'd been just a few weeks earlier before it was too late? Was Johnny strong enough to go to his rival, hat in hand, and beg him for help? And even if he did, would LaRusso be willing to do it?

There was only one way to find out.

Johnny forgot about breakfast and went to get dressed.

* * *

"Robby?"

Daniel LaRusso pushed the door of his guest room open slowly and stuck his head through it.

"Hey, Robby. You up?"

The lump under the blankets didn't answer him, so he stepped into the room, closing the door softly. As he crossed to the bed, he saw that though Robby may have been asleep, he definitely wasn't resting. His head was tossing back and forth on the pillow, the muscles in his arms were tight, his feet were moving around, and his face was pinched around his eyes.

Robby had had more than his fair share of nightmares over the week he'd been staying with them. Daniel would admit to himself and Amanda that he'd had a few of his own, but Robby's concerned him. They both had a lot on their minds, but for Robby, it was so much worse. Daniel had gotten bits and pieces of the story from him, though he hadn't pushed, thinking it best to let Robby open up at his own pace instead of one Daniel set for him. And just those few glimpses he'd gotten had upset him.

Robby's thoughts and feelings about his own life, his father, his mother, Miguel, his childhood, and even a couple of former "friends" he'd mentioned were starting to wear him down. There was just so much there – physical and emotional abandonment, pressure, betrayal, reaching out over and over only to get nothing in return, feeling like he'd become a punching bag for the boy he thought his own father had thrown him aside for – and it was too much. It had left him feeling worthless, unwanted, unloved.

It was too much for anyone to deal with. To do it at sixteen? To do it alone?

Robby's stay in the guest room was a temporary arrangement, just until his shoulder was done healing, but Daniel thought he'd had too many "temporary arrangements" in his life, and he wanted to give him something permanent. Something that couldn't be taken away. He'd brought it up to Amanda the night before, while they were getting ready for bed. They'd been talking about their days, comparing notes, and he'd just dropped it in like it was something he said every day.

 _"I want Robby to move in."_

 _"You want what?" She'd sounded shocked, but there was no real way she could have been surprised. She paid too much attention to what was going on around her to not have known it was going to come up at some point._

 _He shrugged and walked into the bathroom to wash his face. "I want Robby to move in," he repeated._

 _"That's what I thought you said." She pulled the blankets back and tossed the pillows into place. "Okay, I get it. You really like Robby. So do I. He's a sweet kid. And I'm fine with him staying here for a while, but to move in?" She settled on the bed and leaned against the headboard. "Don't you think that's a little extreme?"_

 _"What's extreme about it?" He finished drying his face, tossed the towel down on the sink, and walked back into the bedroom. "I moved in with Mr. Miyagi when I was his age."_

 _"Yes, but your mother was in New Jersey, not North Hills."_

 _"When I moved in, it was because she was going to Fresno," he corrected. "She went back to New Jersey while we were in Okinawa." He sat down on the edge of the bed, and then looked at her across his shoulder. "But the point is, I moved in with him, and I lived there for two years. It's not extreme. It's normal."_

 _She sighed and smiled at him, shaking her head almost indulgently. "Daniel, I love you. But that's not normal. It might be normal for you, but, babe, do you even listen to yourself? You're talking about going to Okinawa like everyone just drops everything and takes off to foreign countries on a whim when they're sixteen. Your normal is so not normal."_

 _He had to smile at that. She had a point._

 _"And there are few big differences. First, your father wasn't Mr. Miyagi's lifelong enemy."_

 _"I wouldn't say … enemy. Not like that."_

 _She just tilted her head and kept going. "Second, Mr. Miyagi didn't have a sixteen-year-old daughter."_

 _He actually scoffed at that. "What, Sam? Come on, Amanda. You've seen them together. They're just friends."_

 _"Yes," she agreed. "They are. Very good friends. And I do happen to trust both of them, but I'm also not going to be blind to the possibility."_

 _Daniel rolled his eyes and turned away._

 _"And third, what about Robby's mother? I know he told her he was staying with friends for a while, and she was okay with it, but don't you you think you should ask her before you just go moving her son in with us? I mean, she might have an opinion."_

 _He openly sneered at the idea and pushed himself up from the bed. "Right. She's so involved in his life, so worried about where he goes and what he does that in the six months he's been part of our lives, we've never met the woman. She wasn't even at the tournament."_

 _"That's not exactly fair, Daniel. Until a week ago, we thought he was eighteen. Meeting his mother wouldn't have made much sense, would it? Besides, how do you know he's not purposely keeping you and the karate and everything else a secret from her? He's pretty good at keeping secrets, remember?"_

 _He spun around angrily. "How? How does she not notice that her sixteen-year-old son is gone more than he's home? How does she not notice him coming and going at all hours? Some days, he gets here at six in the morning. Some nights, he's here until midnight or later. We let him do it because we didn't know how young he is. She does. What is she paying attention to if she doesn't notice he's not there?"_

 _"Daniel …"_

 _He shook his head and sat back down on the bed. "He just … he needs someone, Amanda. I know he has a father, but no matter how much Johnny may want to play dad, he still chose Miguel when Robby needed him."_

 _"You watched him try, Daniel. Robby literally told him to go away."_

 _"And his mom, whatever is going on there, she's obviously too busy or distracted or whatever to be there for him. The friends he used to have, he doesn't want anything to do with, and they didn't care about him anyway. He's alone, and he needs someone."_

 _Amanda smiled at him softly. "Who are you talking about, babe? Robby Keene? Or Daniel LaRusso?"_

 _He dropped his head. He couldn't argue with that, either. Amanda moved across the bed and wrapped her arms around his shoulders._

 _"He's a lost little boy looking for a father. You know something about that, don't you?"_

 _He nodded silently._

 _"And you want to be the one he finds, right?"_

 _"Is it that obvious?" he asked softly._

 _She nodded. "Oh, yeah."_

 _"Is that bad?"_

 _"No," she answered, kissing his cheek. "That's the Daniel LaRusso I fell in love with."_

She hadn't said no. She hadn't said yes, either, but he could live with it. At that moment, though, he needed to take care of the topic of his and Amanda's conversation, who was getting pretty close to thrashing around on the bed in front of him.

"Robby, hey. Wake up." It was something he'd done a hundred times for his own kids, a gentle touch on the arm, a shake of their shoulder, just enough to prod them into wakefulness. Neither Sam nor Anthony had ever responded by throwing a fist at his face, though. Grateful for the reflexes he still had even at forty-nine, Daniel pulled back and put his hands in the air, dodging the punch easily. "Easy," he said, watching Robby's face for a sign the storm was passing. "Take it easy."

Robby blinked, and the fear on his face gave way to shame. "Oh, God, Mr. LaRusso, I'm sorry! I didn't mean …"

Daniel shook his head and smiled. "It's okay." He shrugged nonchalantly, hoping to put Robby at ease. "Maybe one of these days, I'll figure out to stop grabbing your shoulder when you don't know I'm there." He gestured at the side of the bed, asking permission without saying a word. Robby nodded quickly and moved over, so he sat down on the edge of it. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Robby answered with a sigh. "Just a stupid dream, right? Nothing to be upset …" His voice faded away and his eyes glazed over. He was obviously having a hard time shaking the memory.

"You wanna talk about it?" Daniel offered softly. "It might help."

Robby shook his head silently.

Mindful of the fact that he might be starting to push, Daniel tried one last time. "Well, was it about your dad, or …?"

"No." Robby snapped the answer, turning away and staring at the wall before he dropped his head and closed his eyes again. "It wasn't him." His voice was shaking, and the for the first time, Daniel realized his hands were, too.

"Robby?" If Daniel had been concerned about the nightmares before, that concern had just escalated to full-blown worry. Robby wasn't just upset about the nightmare; he was terrified. Confident that Robby was conscious enough of his presence to avoid a repeat performance of the punch-throwing, Daniel reached out and put his hand on his arm. "Hey, what is it?"

"It was … um … it was about you." Daniel's eyes widened in surprise as the words tumbled out of Robby's mouth, faster and faster as he went. "You were hurt, and you couldn't stand up, and I couldn't … I tried, but I couldn't … and you were … then you were just … just laying there … and there was so much blood, and …"

"Hey, hey. Robby. Look at me." Daniel squeezed his arm until Robby finally turned toward him. "I'm right here, kiddo. I'm fine, see?" He held his arms out to his sides and smiled as widely as he could, despite the uneasy feeling that was starting to settle in the pit of his stomach. Robby was having nightmares about him?

It made too much sense. The one and only time Daniel had gotten mad at Robby, he'd thrown him away. He hadn't even given him a chance to explain. He'd fired him, thrown him out of the dojo, out of the house, out of his life, and slammed the door in his face while he was trying to apologize. Why wouldn't he be afraid that it might happen again?

That settled it. Robby was moving in. He'd make whatever excuses he needed to make to Amanda. He'd make whatever promises he needed to make to his mother. He'd deal with whatever he had to deal with from Johnny. He was never letting that kid walk out his door again.

"It was just a bad dream. Everything's fine." Robby nodded his head, slowly at first, then more confidently as he put the feelings and memories further behind him. "You okay?"

Robby gave him a shy smile. "Yeah," he said. An awkward laugh erupted from him as he ran his fingers through his hair. "That was kinda stupid, wasn't it? It was just a dream."

"Nah." Daniel answered him easily, standing up and looking down at him. "Nightmares can be kind of hard to shake. I had one once about me and Amanda fighting, over the dumbest thing. I swear, I was mad at her all day." Robby laughed again, and Daniel smiled. "It happens. But …" Finally seeing his chance to turn their conversation to what had brought him into the room at 5 am to begin with, Daniel took it. "Do you know what the best cure for a bad dream is?"

"I bet it's chores," Robby muttered.

Daniel smiled again. He loved it when he heard echoes of himself in Robby's voice. "Normally, yes, but today, no." Daniel tapped Robby on the shoulder one last time as he turned back to the door. "Today, it's fresh air, sunshine, and two days of peace and solitude in the woods."

Robby's whole face brightened as he remembered the weekend trip they'd been planning for the past two days. "Oh, yeah!" He threw the covers back, jumped out of bed, and reached for his clothes on the dresser. He paused as he looked at the t-shirt in his hands, and he half-turned to Daniel over his shoulder. He looked scared and nervous again. "Mr. LaRusso, did you, um, pack a first aid kit, maybe?"

Daniel nodded. He could imagine how he'd have reacted to having a dream about Mr. Miyagi being in a situation like the one Robby had described from his nightmare. He dismissed the boy's concerns with a wave of his hand. "I always keep one in the Q7, but I'll check it out and top it off, just in case. I'll even bring my knee brace. Amanda's always getting on me about not taking that with me when I go up there to train." He smiled. "We won't need any of it, but you're right. We'll be kind of isolated, and if anything does happen, it's better to be safe than sorry. It makes perfect sense."

The last of the tension drained out of Robby's shoulders, and he sighed. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Daniel pulled the door open, but he glanced back at Robby once more. "Hurry up and get ready. We've got an SUV to pack." He watched just long enough to make certain Robby was going to get dressed without any more problems, then he walked out, closing the door behind him.

* * *

Two hours later, the doorbell rang at the LaRusso home, echoing through the silence of the early Saturday morning.

"Who on Earth, at this time of day?" Amanda asked herself as she grabbed her coffee and headed for the front hall.

She pulled the door open, a smile of greeting on her face, and she froze. She hadn't been expecting anyone in particular, but he was definitely the last person she would have thought she'd see. She couldn't have been any more surprised if the pope himself had been standing there.

"Hey, Amanda."

Ripped jeans, red jacket, blond hair, blue eyes … blue eyes with such dark circles around them that they looked black. What in God's name could have landed him on her doorstep at seven in the morning?

"Good morning, Johnny." There was only one reason she could think of for him being there, excepting what he'd been there for the last time. And he didn't look angry. Upset, yes, but not angry. "Robby's not here, I'm afraid," she said.

He shook his head. "No. No, I'm not looking for Robby." He was distracted, but when he realized what she'd said, he jumped a bit in surprise. "Wait, why would Robby … is he …?" He shook his head, as if he wanted to ask the question, but didn't really want to hear the answer.. "Never mind." She expected him to turn and leave, but he didn't.

He looked around nervously. It was obvious he was there for a reason. Johnny Lawrence didn't just show up at their door. But whatever it was, he wasn't able to say it.

She lowered her eyebrows in confusion. "Then why _are_ you here?"

"Um …" He glanced around again, took a deep breath, and tried one more time. "I need to … I, um …"

She tilted her head slightly. "Johnny, are you okay?"

He swallowed, bit his lip, and turned those distraught, haunted, bruised-looking blue eyes on her. As soon as she saw them, she knew whatever had brought him to her door, it was important, and she needed to listen to him.

"Daniel," he finally said. "I need to talk to Daniel."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Johnny wandered up and down the aisles of the sporting goods store, pushing the big red cart and trying not to look as out of place as he felt.

He had no idea what he was looking for. He'd never been camping in his life. Robby had been right when he said he didn't know what a father/son trip looked like, and that was his fault. But the reality was Johnny didn't know, either. He'd never had a real father to take him on one, and God knew Sid never did. The closest he'd ever been to a camping trip was on an episode of _Eight is Enough_.

He was surrounded by people who could help him, but what kind of loser would he look like if he asked? What self-respecting fifty-year-old man needed help buying camping gear?

The more he thought about it, the more he started thinking the whole thing was a bad idea. He still hadn't asked Miguel if he wanted to go. He hadn't asked Carmen if he even could. And once they got there, what was he going to do? Was he going to be able to make himself ask LaRusso for help? And how was he going to talk him into doing it? He'd barely managed to convince Amanda.

 _"He wanted to get away for a while, Johnny. I don't know what's going on between you and Daniel, and I don't need to know, but I'm not sure following him up there is the greatest idea you've ever had."_

She definitely had a point. It wasn't the best idea he'd ever had, but at that moment, it was the only one he could think of. He'd go alone if he had to, but he wanted Miguel to go, too. Not only because it might help convince LaRusso to help him with the kid if he was standing right in front of him, but also because he just really wanted to give him a couple of days off. Johnny had spent so much time worrying about how Miguel won that he hadn't even congratulated him on winning.

He knew firsthand how much it hurt to have the man who taught you everything you knew say you weren't good enough, had never been and never would be. He knew how much damage could be done by a sensei who responded with anger and violence instead of patience and understanding. And, no, he hadn't broken the trophy, and he'd never do to Miguel what Kreese had done to him, but the disappointment was still all Miguel had seen. He had to fix that.

He looked around, and he found himself standing in the fishing aisle. Fishing was good, wasn't it? Fathers and sons went fishing. Sam had said there was a lake near the spot she thought LaRusso usually set up camp, and lakes had fish in them.

"This is dumb," he muttered to himself. "It's never gonna work." Not knowing what else to do, he grabbed a couple of fishing poles and threw them in the cart.

He'd never caught a fish in his life. He'd never even tried. Something about worms and hooks and … it wasn't going to work. He had no idea what he was doing.

"Can I help you find something, sir?"

He'd done his best to avoid the earnest, eager-to-please teenagers, with their khaki pants and green shirts and red name tags, but he'd obviously failed. He probably looked like an easy mark, wandering around looking lost the way he was, and this particular kid, with his brown hair a little too long and his face a little too freckled, had zeroed in on it.

"No thanks," he said. "I'm fine." He tried to wave the kid – David, according to the tag on his shirt – off and turned away.

"Going fishing?" The kid was too eager to help, but the question still made him stop. He couldn't just walk away from him.

 _'Jesus, he looks like …'_

Johnny took a deep breath, pushed the irritation down, and tried to smile. He was just a kid trying to do his job. It wasn't his fault he looked and sounded like someone Johnny was trying to avoid thinking about.

"Yeah," he answered reluctantly. "Camping. Taking my …" What was Miguel, anyway? What was the most accurate way to describe him? "My kid up to the mountains for the weekend."

"Oh, that's great!" The kid's enthusiasm was just too much. "So, you're looking to add to supplies you already have? Because if you're going camping, you're going to need a lot of supplies for two days."

Johnny closed his eyes. He was really trying, but he couldn't deal with it anymore. "Look, kid, I don't wanna be rude. But seriously, I just wanna get my stuff and go, okay? I don't wanna have some long talk about it, don't wanna listen to you try to sell me a bunch of stuff I don't need. I just wanna grab a couple sleeping bags, a cooler, maybe a few other things, and get outta here. Okay?"

"Oh, okay." The kid's whole face fell. Seriously, did selling camping equipment really mean that much to him? "Sorry to bother you, sir."

The kid actually dropped his head as he turned away, and Johnny sighed. How was he ever going to ask LaRusso for help that he wasn't going to want to give if he couldn't even ask someone who was offering?

"Hey, kid?" Johnny called after him, and he turned back around. Johnny smiled. "David," he said. "I guess I … I don't really know what I'm doing. So, if you're up for it, I guess I could, ya know, use some help. Probably a lot of it."

David smiled, and his whole face brightened. "I'd be glad to, sir. If you know what you're going to be doing, I can show you everything you'll need."

Forty-five minutes and almost $500.00 later, Johnny walked out of the store with two tents, two fishing poles, two sleeping bags, a huge cooler, hooks, plastic worms, and way more camping gadgets and fishing gizmos than he'd even known existed. His wallet was lighter, but so was his mood. As he started shoving everything into the back seat and trunk of the Challenger, he decided that maybe the whole asking for help thing wasn't as bad as he'd always thought it was. Maybe, sometimes, it was the best thing to do.

And maybe, just maybe, the next two days wouldn't turn out to be as big a nightmare as he'd been starting to think they would.

* * *

"Okay, here we are."

Daniel tipped his head, indicating to Robby that they should put everything down. The cooler they were carrying together went first, followed by the multiple bags, both tents and two camp chairs that were all slung across Daniel's back. Robby was trying to pull a duffel over his head one-handed, and Daniel turned toward him.

"Here, let me give you a hand with that."

"Yeah, sure," Robby said. "It's the only thing you let me carry. Why not help me take it off, too?" Daniel pulled the strap away and put the bag on the ground while Robby straightened his sling.

"Well?" Daniel asked with a smile as he stood, winced, and then leaned back to work the aches out of his lower spine. It had been a long time since he'd carried enough supplies for two days on his back, and he was quite a bit older than he'd been then. "What do you think?"

Robby looked around and shrugged. "What am I supposed to think?"

Daniel turned to face him, surprised and almost disheartened at the apparent disinterest.

Robby smiled, amused at Daniel's reaction. He'd clearly done that on purpose. "I think it's great, Mr. LaRusso. I really like it up here. Have you camped here before?"

The smile was a good start. There hadn't been very many on the drive up. Daniel smiled back and nodded in answer to the question.

"I found this clearing about ten years ago," he said, looking up at the trees that surrounded them. "It's just this perfect little circle of nothing. I've always wanted to bring the kids here, but Sam doesn't like camping, and Anthony won't go anywhere there's no wifi." He shrugged. Amanda told him Anthony's lack of interest in father/son activities was normal, but having had no father when he was Anthony's age, he wouldn't know. He'd have done anything and gone anywhere with his father, because it would have meant he was still there.

"I'm sure he will someday," Robby said. "When I was that age, I wouldn't do anything my dad …" He bit his lip and let the sentence trail off. The topic of fathers wasn't an easy one for either of them.

"We're not far from where we were last time," Daniel said, changing the subject quickly and pointing to a small path off to their left. "The lake's right through there. Hey, that reminds me, do you swim?"

Robby shrugged. "Not really. I mean, I can, but I don't very often. Why?"

"The water is really nice this time of year. It's still a little cold, but you won't freeze in it. And it's not warm yet, either." Daniel smiled. "Thought it might be nice to jump in after an afternoon of training."

"Training?" Robby rolled his eyes and groaned. After how awkward and uncomfortable their trip had been, it was nice to get a reminder of the teenage boy he was. "I thought you said rest and relaxation!"

"No, I'm pretty sure I said peace and solitude." He couldn't stop the grin he felt spreading across his face. "And that means training."

"Why?"

"Because we always train, Robby. You should know that by now."

"But, I'm hurt," Robby protested, holding up his left arm in its sling.

Daniel nodded slowly. "I know, and I've already planned around that. Although, I did watch you take it off and play basketball in the driveway with Sam for almost an hour last night."

Robby huffed in exasperation, and Daniel had to stop himself from laughing. Damn, the kid reminded him of himself. But just as Mr. Miyagi hadn't accepted that behavior from sixteen-year-old Daniel, forty-nine-year old Daniel couldn't accept it from Robby.

"Okay. Let's get our camp set up," he said, gesturing at the pile of supplies as he picked up one of the chairs. "You get the bags sorted out, and then we'll start putting up the tents. When we're done, we'll get changed and head down to the lake. It's a beautiful place to do kata."

"You gonna put me on the tree again?" Robby asked, unzipping the first of the bags.

"I guess that depends," Daniel answered. He pulled the bag off the chair, opened it, and set it down in the middle of the clearing, near where they would be building their fire pit. "How's your balance?"

"Wobbly," Robby said honestly. "I've only got one arm, ya know." He'd finished going through the second duffel and was moving on to the third. He opened it, scanned it quickly, and tossed it aside.

"Then I'm sure we'll pay the tree a visit or two." Daniel picked up the next chair and started to pull it out of its bag. He could hear Robby behind him, digging through their supplies at an increasingly rapid pace and starting to throw the bags around at a rather impressive rate for a kid who claimed he only had one working arm.

"Where's the first aid kit?!"

Daniel turned toward him again. "What?"

"The first aid kit!" He couldn't believe how quickly Robby's mood had shifted from frustrated to anxious. "It's not here. Your knee brace isn't, either. Did we bring them? They were in the SUV, weren't they?" He stood up straight, slapped his pockets and pulled out the keys. "I have to go look …"

"Robby." Daniel couldn't stand that the stricken look from earlier that morning had returned to his face so soon after it had left it. He put the chair on the ground and stepped forward. "Relax. They're here. They're in the Q7, just like I said they would be. I couldn't figure out how to carry everything in one trip, so I left them behind. It's only fifteen minutes back to where we parked, so …"

Robby turned toward the trail without another word. Daniel grabbed his shoulder and turned him back around, pleasantly surprised that he didn't have to duck a fist. "Hey, calm down."

"No," Robby said, shaking his head. "We need those. I need to …"

Daniel held his hands up in a placating gesture. "I'll go get them, okay? I was planning to go back for them anyway." He reached out, took the keys from Robby's hand, and patted his arm. "You stay here. Start working on the fire pit. The rocks I always use are just off to the side of the path to the lake."

"Mr. LaRusso …"

"It's fine. I'm the one who left them, so I'm the one who should go get them. You've got a camp to get set up." The more he talked, the wider and more panicked Robby's eyes grew.

What the hell was going on?

"I'll be gone for half an hour, tops. Fifteen minutes there, fifteen minutes back. If I'm gone any longer than that, or if anything happens while I'm gone, you call my cell, okay?"

"But …"

"No," Daniel said with a shake of his head. He leaned forward until Robby had no choice but to look at him. The haunted look in the green eyes bothered him, but he couldn't give in to it. "No 'buts.' Okay?"

Robby wanted to say no, and that was obvious. He wanted to keep fighting. He didn't want Daniel going down that trail alone. But he also knew his teacher had spoken, and if there was one thing Robby was getting good at, it was listening to his teacher.

"Robby."

"Okay," he finally relented. "I'll find the rocks. Just …"

"I'll be fine. I promise. I've been walking these trails alone for years. I won't get lost." He smiled, and he was almost proud of how hard Robby tried to return it. "I'll be back before you even notice I'm gone."

Daniel stepped past Robby and started down the trail. Outwardly, he pretended everything was fine, but inwardly, he had to force himself to ignore the fact that Robby was staring after him as he went. The comfort and ease they felt around each other had shattered again. All the progress Robby had made in the past ten minutes was destroyed because Daniel had left supplies they weren't even going to need in the car. That situation had escalated quickly, and there was nothing Daniel could have done to stop it.

 _'What am I gonna do with this kid?'_

It was obvious the nightmare was still messing with Robby's head. Daniel had let him drive, in the hopes that having something else to concentrate on would break the last of the dream's hold on him, but it hadn't worked. He'd been shooting panicked glances at Daniel the whole time, almost like he was afraid he was going to disappear from the passenger seat. He hadn't mentioned it, thinking it best to let Robby wrestle his own imagination into submission. Add the outburst at finding the first aid kit and knee brace missing, and the near-panic attack he'd had at the thought of Daniel walking back to the car, and maybe he'd been wrong about that.

What could he have possibly seen in that nightmare that was so bad it was still scaring him? Robby was one of the strongest people Daniel had ever met, but for the past four hours, he'd been nervous, jumpy, and clingy. None of those were words Daniel would have ever associated with him, especially the last, but it was true. Robby was acting more like a toddler with separation anxiety than a sixteen-year-old boy, and he had been behaving that way from the moment he'd woken up. He couldn't stand to let Daniel out of his sight. It was so bad that Daniel was almost positive he was being followed.

There was a sound behind him, and he turned his head, expecting to see Robby standing there. But there was no one. There was nothing behind him but the trail and the trees.

He shook his head and turned back around. Trying to think of ways to get Robby's head back on straight was apparently making him start to lose his own, and that wasn't going to fix anything. All it was going to do was ruin their weekend.

What could he do to help Robby win a battle with his own mind? How did he teach him not to give into fear, the way Mr. Miyagi had taught him, when what he was afraid of wasn't even real? How could he help him?

 _"When you feel life out of focus, always return to basic of life."_

He had to smile at the words. Mr. Miyagi still had a way of giving him the answers he needed.

Daniel had done it hundreds of times, when he'd felt himself or his life spinning out of control. He hadn't done it in years, but he couldn't deny that he probably needed it just as much as Robby did. Maybe, if he couldn't get Robby out of his own head, the answer was to take him deeper into it. It was worth a try. Reassuring him wasn't helping, and indulging him was only making things worse.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he felt as if eyes were boring into his back right between his shoulder blades. He spun quickly. He'd already opened his mouth to say Robby's name when he realized that, just as before, there was no one there.

"This is getting ridiculous," he muttered as he turned and resumed his walk down the path.

He saw the roof of the SUV just ahead, through the trees, and he sped up his pace. He'd get the first aid kit, he'd get the damn knee brace, and he'd get back to Robby as quickly as he could. The sooner they got started, the better it would be for both of them. He'd get Robby straightened out, and hopefully, that would be the end of it. Neither of them could keep going like they were.

Their weekend on the mountain was supposed to be about balance and bonding, not fear and frustration.

He heard something else behind him, a soft, shrill call that almost sounded like laughter, but he shook his head and made himself ignore it. It was just the wind, or a bird, or some other perfectly normal sound of nature he usually wouldn't have even heard, let alone paid attention to. He was letting Robby's paranoia infect him, and he was on edge for absolutely no good reason. He'd checked twice, and he wasn't going to do it again. He knew there was nothing there. He'd tell himself that the whole way back to camp if he had to.

How was he supposed to teach Robby to focus if he couldn't even do it himself?

He rolled his shoulders, took a deep breath, and pressed the button on his key fob to unlock the doors. He tried to ignore the feeling of being watched, but the skin was starting to crawl up his back, and he couldn't shake it. Grateful there was no one there to witness his stupidity, he glanced across his shoulder as he leaned into the back seat of the SUV.

Nothing. No one.

Gritting his teeth at his own idiocy, he grabbed the first aid kit and knee brace from the floorboard angrily, slammed the door, and spun on his heel. He was stronger than that. He had to be. Robby needed him to be. He had fifteen minutes to get his bearings, and maybe less than that, as quickly as he was walking. The entire episode was ridiculous, and he felt like a fool. He had to regain control of his mind, and he had to do it soon.

If he didn't, that damn nightmare was going to drag him under, too.

* * *

After a much shorter, easier, and way less expensive stop at the grocery store, Johnny's brand new cooler was fully stocked with everything he could imagine needing for two days in the woods. Hot dogs, ketchup, mustard, Doritos, peanut butter and jelly, bread, marshmallows, candy bars, Pop Tarts, and Dr. Pepper. He bought the last because that Mr. Pibb stuff Miguel liked was actual crap, and he wanted to get the kid drinking some real soda.

And if he'd stopped at another store and bought some refreshments for himself that Miguel wasn't going to know about, what did it matter? He wasn't planning on spending the weekend drunk, but sometimes, certain situations called for a little liquid courage, and he knew himself well enough to know that he was walking into one.

He knocked on the apartment door softly, both wondering why he was nervous and pretending he wasn't. It was pretty late in the morning to be taking off for a camping trip, but he hadn't had much choice.

 _"I'm not looking to pick a fight with the guy, Amanda. I promise. I just need to talk to him. That's all." She hadn't believed him, and that had been obvious. "It's important. I wouldn't be asking if it wasn't. Please. Where is he?"_

 _She'd thought about it for a few seconds. He didn't know how or why, but he saw it on her face, the moment she decided to trust him. "He's in the mountains somewhere. That's all I know, I'm afraid. I've never gone with him, and I've never asked. That's his place." His heart sank in his chest, and he sighed._

 _"Oh. Okay. Well, thanks anyway." He dropped his head and started to turn away._

 _"But Sam knows." He stopped turning and looked back at her over his shoulder. "It's not far from where he trains. Let me … I'll go wake her up, okay? She can tell you where he is."_

It had taken Sam almost half an hour to stop trying to give him GPS thingies he didn't know what to do with and just describe some actual landmarks he could use to find his way. It had taken her another fifteen minutes to give him clear enough directions to keep him from getting lost. Then he'd gone to the store, spent way too much time and way too much money buying way too much stuff, and then driven back to Reseda Heights.

So he was showing up at Miguel's at 9:45 on a Saturday morning to take the kid on a spontaneous camping trip. Nothing weird about that at all.

It was Rosa who answered the door, and he smiled. Rosa liked him, and he knew it. Hoping to both maintain that and work it to his advantage, he did his best to greet her in her own language. "Bueno diaz, Rosa."

She smiled at him broadly, amused. "Buenos días, Johnny." She spoke the words slowly and clearly.

He felt himself blush at the obvious errors he'd made, and he looked down at his feet. "Right. Sorry about that." He'd have to get Miguel to actually teach him some Spanish before he tried that again. "Hey, is Carmen …" He lifted his head and smiled when he saw her standing behind her mother. "Buenos días, Carmen."

Unlike Rosa, who was looking at him fondly, apparently touched that he was making an effort, Carmen was almost laughing. "Good morning, Johnny." His cheeks were on fire. He'd just told himself he needed to learn what to say before he opened his mouth, and he'd gone and made himself look like an even bigger idiot, anyway. "What can I do for you?"

"Um, actually, I … well … I wanted … I mean, is …" He swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and tried again. "Can I take Miguel somewhere?"

The laugh fell from her face, and she blinked at him in silence. Rosa turned and walked into the living room, leaving them alone to talk, and Carmen stepped forward.

"I've been thinking about it, and I haven't really been the best sensei this week. I know. And I promised you I wouldn't do that again, and I'm really trying. But, I think maybe, if we leave the city, ya know? Just me and him. It'll give me a chance to talk to him, and then, we can finally get around to celebrating that win he pulled off. I haven't done that with him yet."

The blank look was replaced by an expression of deep disappointment. She took another step forward, leaned in, and said softly, "Do you think celebrating is the right word?"

"Um …" Okay, so she was upset about it, too. He didn't know if that made him feel better or worse. "I'm guessing no?"

He'd noticed the looks she'd been giving him for the past few days, but he'd been too wrapped up in his own problems to figure out what they meant. It was obvious she was proud of her son for what he'd done, for how far he'd come and how much he'd learned in the months since he'd been training, but underneath that, she also shared Johnny's concern and disappointment in how he'd achieved that victory. And now Johnny was standing in her door saying that behavior was worthy of rewarding. She was as worried as he was, about all the same things.

And she didn't even know about Kreese.

"I just, I wanna …" He glanced down at the floor again, then lifted his head and looked her straight in the eye. "I wanna help him, Carmen. Maybe he's a little lost right now, but everybody gets lost sometimes, don't they? I think it might, maybe, do him some good?"

She was openly skeptical, and it showed on her face. "You still haven't told me where you want to go."

"Camping," he answered quickly, gesturing back at the Challenger. It looked convincing, stacked to the windows with gear and food the way it was. "Up in the mountains. There's this place up there, with a lake, and I think maybe … I'd just really like to take him up there. Just for the weekend. We'd be back tomorrow, late in the afternoon or early evening?"

She finally started to look like she was considering it, but she wasn't convinced yet.

"I know he made … no. It wasn't him. It was me. I'm his teacher. His behavior on the mat is on me, and maybe I taught him some wrong things without meaning to, and I know I made a mistake, and I'm sorry. But I think I know how to fix it. Please."

She tipped her head slightly. "I don't know, Johnny."

"Carmen, please. Let me try. Let me help him. Please."

She stared into his eyes, and he felt like she was trying to read his soul. He guessed she liked what she saw, because she nodded her head firmly and turned to yell across her shoulder. "Miggy!" When he didn't answer her, she tried again. "Miggy!"

Miguel appeared at the end of the hallway, still in his shorts and rumpled t-shirt, his hair sticking up every-which-way. "What, Mom?"

"Get dressed." She turned back to Johnny and smiled. "You're going camping with Sensei Lawrence."

* * *

Daniel stepped back from the tent and dusted his hands off on his jeans. "And that's it," he announced. "We're done. Good job."

Robby's smile was genuine, and it made Daniel happy to see it. The last of his tension, which had been fading throughout the two hours they'd been working, evaporated. They looked around their camp, surveying the work they'd done, the fire pit Robby had built, and the tents they'd put up together. Their chairs were set up around the fire, their sleeping bags were laid out, their clothes were in their tents, and their food was safely packed away in Daniel's.

"Now what?" Robby asked, once more the excited kid he'd been when Daniel had first asked him if he wanted to go camping. "You want me to light the fire so we can make the hotdogs?"

"Not yet," Daniel said with a smile. "I want to show you something first. Follow me."

He turned and started down the trail toward the lake.

"Already?" Robby asked, with more than a touch of disappointment in his voice. "We don't even get lunch? Or a break?"

"Don't worry," he told him. "This isn't going to take long. And we're both going to feel a lot better when we're done."

Robby's confusion showed on his face. "What are we doing?"

He could have explained, but it would work better if he showed him. And before he showed him, he wanted to tell him the story. "There are a few big events in everyone's life that they look forward to. First date, first kiss, your senior prom … Everyone thinks about them, even the guys. Everyone wants them to be perfect, right?"

"I guess," Robby mumbled. "I'm not going to have a prom, so I don't really know."

"Oh, yes, you will," Daniel promised. "But that's a discussion for later." Robby looked slightly taken aback at the declaration, but Daniel wasn't ready to talk about Robby's school situation yet. "Anyway, these things are supposed to be highlights of your life. They're these big milestones that everyone has, and everyone wants to look back on them as good memories. I was no different."

Daniel turned around and started walking backwards, still talking. He was aware enough of his surroundings that he wasn't worried about tripping. "My senior prom started out fine, but by the end of it, my girlfriend had wrecked my car, _and_ she'd dumped me for another guy, and when I went home to cry to my mom about it, I found out we were moving to Fresno for the summer."

Robby winced in sympathy. "Ouch."

"Yeah. What was supposed to be the best night of my life became one of the worst in barely an hour. And I was a kid, I was sixteen, I thought the whole world was ending." He turned back around as they approached the shore. "So, of course, I go to the one person I know will understand everything about my teenage angst and drama. My sixty-year-old sensei."

Robby smiled. "Mr. Miyagi, right?"

"That's right. Mr. Miyagi. And, I'm standing there in his backyard, in my powder-blue tuxedo … don't laugh! It was the 80s. And I looked fantastic." He admired the effort Robby put into not laughing, and when he failed, Daniel laughed, too. They'd reached the lake, so Daniel stopped and turned to face him. "Okay, it was ridiculous," he admitted. "Word of advice – no matter how pretty she is or how much she begs, never wear powder-blue ruffles. But the point is, that morning, he showed me one of the simplest, but most important, things he ever taught me. He called it the basic of life. And I'm going to teach it to you."

The look on Robby's face changed from amusement to interest, and Daniel knew he'd made the right decision. Feeling confident in his teaching abilities for the first time since he'd woken up that morning, he pressed the palms of his hands together.

"He taught you to pray?"

Daniel smiled. "I asked him the same question, but no. Not praying. Breathing."

"Wait, he taught you to _breathe_?"

"He taught me to breathe _right_." Daniel closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. As he exhaled, he pushed his hands above his head. He inhaled again, and moved them back to his chest, then exhaled and pushed them straight out in front of him. Another inhale, and back to center.

He opened his eyes to Robby's slightly confused expression.

"Why don't you just do kata?"

Daniel smiled and let his arms fall to his sides. "This isn't about balance. It's simpler, more, well, basic. It's about focus. It's more immediate, and not as complicated, but it's pretty powerful. When all you're focused on is breathing, when you center your mind, everything around you changes. You can hear your own heart beating. You can feel the world around you sharper and clearer than you've ever felt before. It clears your mind, but it also puts you in touch with it in a way I can't really explain. Before long, you realize everything that's bothering you, or distracting you, or confusing you, is starting to make sense. You can take your life back when you feel like it's gotten out of your control." He motioned for Robby to move closer. "Come on. You try it. You'll see."

Robby slipped his sling off and let it hang at his side. He stood, facing Daniel, and pressed his hands together. Daniel closed his eyes again and concentrated, felt each breath moving in and out of his lungs, and let his arms move without conscious thought. Even after all those years without it, the movements were still comfortable and familiar. He knew Robby was watching him, just as he remembered watching Mr. Miyagi the first time. He could feel him studying Daniel's movements, comparing them to his own, making the adjustments he needed to compensate for not being able to fully extend his shoulder. Daniel knew the moment everything clicked into place, and he turned his thoughts inward when he heard Robby's breathing slow down and even out.

Daniel went deeper into his own mind and let go of the anger, frustration, and anxiety he'd allowed to take hold of him that morning. He could hear the wind blowing through the leaves around them, the squirrels chattering and the birds chirping. A wave of relaxation crashed into him, and he let it pull him under. The mountain and the lake appeared in perfect clarity in his mind's eye, and as his focus sharpened, so did the vision.

Then, suddenly, he became aware that somewhere close to them, something felt wrong. There was an empty place in the trees, with no movement and no sound. He concentrated on it, listening, breathing, and that hole in the birdsong began to change. It got darker, heavier. Scarier. Something was there, something that didn't belong. He tipped his head and tried to pinpoint exactly where and what it was.

He kept breathing, feeling his hands move, listening to his own exhales in concert with Robby's, and the evenness of the sound told him Robby hadn't felt it. He tried to pull back into his mind, reached for the peace he'd been so close to finding, but the hair on the back of his neck was standing up again. Something – someone – was staring at the middle of his back. He could feel it like a physical touch. He shook his head and kept going, tried to ignore it and stay focused, but the _wrongness_ of it only got stronger.

A stick snapped behind him. His eyes shot open, and he spun around, his hands raising instinctively to defend against the threat he expected to be standing there. The line between his mind and reality was still blurry, but the contrast was jarring. He blinked several times, not believing what he saw and half-thinking he hadn't opened his eyes at all.

It was only Robby's soft, "Dad?" from behind him that convinced him what – who – he was seeing was real.

"Hey, LaRusso," Johnny said. "What's up?"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

"Johnny?"

Daniel still didn't quite believe who was standing in front of him. He glanced over at Robby, who looked just as shocked as he was, and then back at Johnny, who looked equally astonished.

Déjà vu.

Hoping the second surprise meeting between the three of them didn't end as badly as the first one had, Daniel shook his head and said the first thing that came to mind.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Johnny didn't answer him. He was staring at Robby, his eyes wide, and he looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights. Daniel thought back over the past week, and he realized it was the first time father and son had seen each other since Robby had forgiven him and walked away after the tournament. It would have been a difficult moment for both of them, no matter the circumstances. Johnny was a big boy and could take care of himself. Daniel's priority was Robby.

"Hey, Robby?" He kept his eyes on Johnny as he spoke, watching to make sure his anger didn't start boiling over. The guy had tried to shove him through a wall for even knowing Robby, and he'd threatened him for coaching him. How was he going to react to Daniel showing any kind of authority over him? "Why don't you head back to camp? I'm gonna talk to your dad for a minute. But I'll be right there."

Robby tore his eyes away from his father and nodded. "Sure thing, Mr. LaRusso."

He walked behind Daniel, choosing a route that took him as far from Johnny as possible, and started up the path, putting his arm back in the sling as he went. Johnny and Daniel both stood in silence and watched him go. Once he was out of sight, Daniel repeated his question, much more forcefully than before.

"What. The Hell. Are you doing here?"

Johnny turned to face him, with one of the fakest smiles Daniel had ever seen plastered on his face. "What? A guy can't go camping?"

"Camping?" Daniel asked. There was no way he was going to believe that. "You go camping?"

"Sure," Johnny answered dismissively. "All the time. Who doesn't?"

"Okay." He drew the word out and put every ounce of disbelief he was feeling into it. "You go camping 'all the time,' but Robby has never put up a tent before today. And you just happen to go camping 'all the time' in the exact same spot I do?"

"Nah," Johnny said, shaking his head. "First time I've been here."

"So, I'll ask again. What the hell ...?"

"I told you," Johnny interrupted. "I wanted to take Miguel camping, and this seemed like a good spot."

Daniel froze. "You brought Miguel?"

"Well, yeah. Why wouldn't I?"

Daniel clenched his teeth and pressed his lips together. "Oh, sure," he said, sarcasm dripping from every word. "Of course. You've never taken your son camping in his life, so, of course, you'd take the kid you let pound on his dislocated shoulder with you." He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead in frustration. He didn't want Robby to hate his father, and he'd been putting a lot of effort into convincing Robby to give him a chance, but Johnny wasn't making it easy. "That's ... I can't even put into words how screwed up that is."

"Hey!" Johnny's tone changed from falsely casual to defensive. "I didn't _let_ Miguel pound on Robby's shoulder. I told him not to."

"Yeah? Did he listen?" Daniel shook his head and waved his hand through the air. "Ya know what? It doesn't matter. You want to take Miguel camping? Fine. I'll go get Robby, and we'll pack up and just go." He turned and walked past Johnny, heading back to a campsite he'd considered his sanctuary for more than ten years but was almost certain he would never return to.

"Hey, LaRusso …" Johnny grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.

Daniel's hands came up again, though he didn't know if it was anger or surprise or an actual perceived threat that made him raise them.

Johnny glanced down at Daniel's clenched fists, dropped his own hands to his sides, and took one step back. "I'll give you the first one," he said. "Because you were meditating or whatever and didn't know I was here, and I'm gonna ignore this one."

Johnny's face hardened. In Daniel's mind, the past thirty-four years fell away, and he was fifteen again. Instead of standing next to a lake in the woods, he was backed up against a fence in an empty lot behind his apartment building. The Johnny Lawrence he remembered from that fateful Halloween was standing in front of him, staring him down. When he spoke, his voice was just as hard as it had been that night.

"But you throw those up at me again, and I'm gonna take you up on it."

A sudden urge to accept Johnny's challenge flashed through Daniel's mind, but he shoved it back down just as quickly. His and Robby's weekend had already been ruined, and between the nightmare and Johnny and Miguel both showing up, Robby was going to be upset enough as it was. The last thing the kid needed was to watch his teacher and his father beat the crap out of each other. He took a deep breath, relaxed his fists, and let his hands fall.

"Look, LaRusso, that ..." Johnny's face softened, and he sounded almost apologetic. "I didn't come up here to fight with you, man. You don't need to leave."

Daniel huffed out a breath. "Why _did_ you come up here?"

"I already told you."

"Right. That's right." Daniel nodded and gestured at Johnny with his hand. "You just came up here to go camping. And if you think I'm gonna believe that, you're nuts."

Johnny didn't answer him.

"Who's following who around now, huh? I mean, you've been here a while, haven't you? Did you have fun, skulking around in the woods and messing with my head like that?"

"What? No!" That wasn't defensiveness. That was honest confusion. "I haven't been ... I just got here. What are you talking about? Who's following you around and messing with your head? What's going on?"

"Nothing," Daniel said, shaking his head. Johnny's sudden appearance had made the weirdness he'd felt on his way to the car and again while doing the breathing exercise make sense. If it wasn't him, then what was it? "Never mind. But, since you still won't tell me why you're here or how you found us, then ..."

"Amanda and Sam told me." The sudden admission was unexpected, and Daniel didn't want to believe it, but the look in Johnny's eyes said he wasn't lying.

"Why would they do that?"

"Because I asked them?" Johnny shrugged. "But, I thought you were by yourself. I didn't know Robby was here. If I'd known, I probably wouldn't have come. And even if I did, I definitely wouldn't have brought Miguel."

Daniel stared at Johnny in stunned silence.

Johnny looked down at the ground, then back up at him. "Look, I ... I only came to talk to you. To ask you something." He rolled his shoulders, glanced over at the lake and then back at the ground. He obviously didn't want to say whatever it was he'd come to say. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and looked Daniel in the eye. "I know this sounds weird, man, but I need … help." He blew the breath out through his teeth. "I need your help."

Those were words Daniel had never imagined he'd hear Johnny Lawrence say to him. "You need what?"

"Don't make me say it again." It was part plea, part command.

Daniel tilted his head in confusion. He opened his mouth to ask for clarification, but he never got the chance. The sound of raised, angry voices behind him cut him off.

"Robby." Daniel turned and was running back up the trail before he realized what he was doing.

"That was fast," Johnny said from right behind him.

It took them barely a minute to reach the edge of the campsite. As they cleared the trees, they were greeted by the sight of Robby and Miguel standing next to the fire pit, face-to-face, only inches apart.

"If you hadn't shown up, none of it would've happened!"

"It wouldn't have happened if you weren't being a drunk asshole, either."

Miguel pulled his fist back, moving into his fighting position. "I was aiming for you, not her."

Robby kept his left arm, in its sling, tight against his body, but raised his right hand as he assumed a defensive posture. "Well, she's not in your way this time, is she?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Daniel rushed forward, put one hand on Robby's chest, and pushed him back. "That's enough."

Johnny moved toward Miguel at the same time, put his left arm between them, grabbed Miguel by the shoulders, and pulled him away. "What the hell, man?"

Daniel and Johnny glanced at each other, and Daniel rolled his eyes. Then, he leaned closer to Robby, keeping his hand on him to hold him back. "Enough."

"But …"

Daniel just shook his head. Robby looked at Miguel and Johnny over Daniel's shoulder, then he turned his head toward Daniel and nodded.

"We need firewood." Daniel dropped his hand, stepped back, and motioned for Robby to walk ahead of him into the woods across from the path to the lake. "Come on. Let's go find some."

Robby did as he was told, albeit slowly and reluctantly. Before they disappeared behind the trees, Daniel shot Johnny one last look across his shoulder.

 _'Stay. We'll talk. This is going fucking great so far.'_

* * *

As soon as LaRusso and Robby were out of sight, Johnny smacked Miguel in the back of the head. "What the hell was that?"

Miguel was pissed. His eyes were hard, his body was tense, and his jaw was clenched. Johnny had thought Miguel's behavior at the tournament had come from his own need to beat LaRusso at any cost. But he wasn't pissed at LaRusso; he was pissed at Robby. And they'd been talking like they had history outside the tournament. Was Robby more to Miguel than just LaRusso's student? Did they actually know each other?

He realized Miguel had no idea Robby was his son, because he'd never told him. Maybe it was time to stop guarding that little secret and share it with the one person who really needed to know.

Miguel's anger fell away, and when he turned toward Johnny, there was nothing but pain on his face. "Do you remember what you told me about the LaRussos, Sensei?" he asked, and Johnny nodded slowly. "He stole your girl, kept picking fights with you, and took away everything you cared about? Do you remember how you told me not to trust them?"

Johnny nodded again. "You're leaving some stuff out, but, yeah. What does that have to do with Robby?"

Tears were starting to well in Miguel's eyes, and Johnny looked back at the trees Robby and LaRusso had disappeared behind. He didn't deal well with emotions on a good day, and crying teenage boys knocked him completely off his game.

"I guess the apples don't fall far from the tree," Miguel said. The bitterness in his voice was something Johnny recognized immediately. He'd been hearing it from himself for more than thirty years. "His daughter and his student are both just like him."

Johnny had a terrible feeling that their already complicated situation was about to get a thousand times worse.

"Sam dumped me."

He'd known that much. A blind man could have seen it, the way he'd kept shooting glances at her at the tournament, the way she'd kept turning away.

"She brought another guy to this party we were having, and ..."

Johnny's heart dropped into his stomach. He knew where the story was going, and he didn't want to hear the end of it. He didn't need to hear the end of it, did he? He'd lived it with LaRusso and Ali.

"They were holding hands, and laughing, and I couldn't. I just couldn't. I ..."

He'd only wanted Miguel to be careful. He'd only wanted him to keep his eyes open. He hadn't wanted to be right.

"Who was the other guy?" Johnny didn't really need to ask, because he already knew the answer. But he figured it was probably best if he let Miguel say it. It would explain Miguel's sudden personality shift, and he could tell LaRusso about it when he finally got a chance to talk to him.

If he ever did. At that point, depending on what he and Robby were talking about out there, LaRusso was most likely either going to come back, take Robby and leave, like he'd said he was going to do, or he was going to come back and bodily throw him and Miguel both off the damn mountain.

And the way things were going, Johnny was starting to think maybe he couldn't really blame him if he did.

Miguel turned slightly, looking off into the woods just like Johnny was doing, but his expression and Johnny's couldn't have been any different. The tears disappeared, the muscles in his jaw twitched, and the pain was replaced by the most intense anger and hatred Johnny had seen in a long time. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing himself at seventeen.

"Robby Keene," Miguel spat out, "is my Daniel LaRusso."

 _'Well. Fuck.'_

* * *

"I'm guessing that was about Sam."

Robby nodded, but he didn't stop walking or turn around.

"Do you feel better now, or …?"

"No, I don't."

Daniel kept following him, giving him the space and time he needed to work out whatever aggression he might still have pent up in there. "Think you'd feel better if you'd hit him?"

"Yes!" Robby snapped, but he was shaking his head. "No. Maybe? I don't know." He stopped suddenly and spun around. "Why is he here?" he demanded. There was no anger on his face, but there was frustration. "Why are _they_ here?"

Daniel sighed. "Your dad needs to talk to me about something."

"And it couldn't wait until Monday?"

"I guess not. I don't know. He never got a chance to tell me exactly what it is." Daniel shrugged and shook his head. "Look, Robby …"

"Can't we just go home?" Robby's voice echoed the frustration on his face. "Can't we just go home and forget this whole thing?"

It was a sentiment Daniel knew and remembered all-too-well. He'd been prepared to do exactly that five minutes earlier, and he'd wanted nothing more when he was fifteen. But just like palm trees, running away never solved anything.

"We can," he answered carefully. "If that's what you really want to do. But this?" He gestured from himself to Robby, then back toward the campsite. "It's not just going to go away."

Robby's shoulders fell, and he slumped down on a fallen tree. "Gonna have to deal with them sometime, right?"

Daniel walked over and sat next to him. "Not just you, ya know." He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. "Your dad and I still have our stuff to figure out, and who knows how long that's gonna take. I've got a big problem with Miguel right now over what he did to Sam, accident or not. You've got your dad to deal with, your stuff with Miguel over what he did to you last weekend, over Sam, _and_ over your dad, and … I'm sure Miguel's got his own issues with the two of us, too. It's a huge mess. For all of us. And we really need to work on getting past it. I don't know if we'll all ever get along, but we'll be so much happier if we can at least stop thinking we all hate each other."

"Do you hate my dad?" It was a question Robby had never asked him before, but it was one he'd asked himself quite a few times in the past ten months.

"No," he answered honestly. "I don't. He aggravates me. He pisses me off. And I hate everything Cobra Kai is and stands for. But I don't hate _him_. I haven't in a long, long time … if I ever really did."

"Then why does he hate you?"

Daniel's answer was a shrug. "You'd have to ask him. I'd be guessing. He's the only one who knows the answer."

Robby mirrored Daniel's position and looked down at the ground. "How are we supposed to find balance like this? Every time I feel like I'm getting close, something or someone comes around and knocks me over."

A snap in the woods behind them made Daniel turn his head, but he turned back just as quickly. He needed to stop jumping every time some animal walked through the underbrush.

"Well, barring some world-shattering apocalypse we all end up on the same side of …" Robby laughed, and Daniel smiled. "Mr. Miyagi used to say that you had to learn to walk before you learn to fly. Maybe our problem is that we all just learned to fly too fast, and we need to come back down. Maybe we just need to learn to walk again."

"Feet on the ground," Robby said softly.

"Put one foot in front of the other. Exactly."

Another twig snapped. Louder. Closer. Daniel rolled his shoulders to shake off the returning sensation of eyes on his back, and he stood up. "And we need to walk right now," he said, as nonchalantly as he could manage. "We can pick up some sticks and small branches on the way, so it doesn't look like I was just making up an excuse to get you away from Miguel. But we do need to head back. If we're gonna clean this mess up, we may as well start now."

Robby stood, wiped his hand on his jeans, straightened his sling, and stepped past him. "Do you really think this is gonna work?"

A third stick snapped, followed by a rustling of dried leaves, and Daniel turned toward the sounds. "Ask me again after I talk to your dad," he answered distractedly. He narrowed his eyes as he looked into the darkness between the trees. There was still nothing there. He shook his head.

"Mr. LaRusso?" Robby's voice sounded further away than it should have been.

Daniel snapped his head around to find that Robby had continued walking while he'd been staring at the nothing in the woods, and he'd gotten quite a way ahead of him. "Right behind you!" he called out. He spun quickly and jogged to catch up.

He didn't look back again.

* * *

"Look, man, I get it. I do. But you gotta cool it for now."

"Sensei ..."

"I've got something I need to work out with LaRusso. It's important." How could he put it in terms Miguel would understand without telling him what it was? "It's more important than getting the dojo unbanned from the tournament was. Remember how you told me to do that?"

Miguel nodded. "Delicately."

"Yeah, well, you and I both know we're not that. And I don't need you to be delicate. I just need you to be less ... violent."

"But ..."

He put his hand on Miguel's shoulder, hoping the touch would ground him. The kid looked like he wanted to murder something. Someone. Robby. Johnny's own son.

 _'I made him hate Robby. I did this.'_

He really needed to tell Miguel who Robby was, but he had to wait for the right time. Telling him at that moment wouldn't do anything but set Miguel off again.

"No. No 'buts' this time. You are going to do what I tell you, do you understand?" Miguel ground his teeth together and glared, but he didn't answer him. "Do you understand me, Mr. Diaz?"

"Yes, Sensei!" Miguel snapped.

"I need to do this. And I can't if I'm worried that you're going to start shit with Robby the second we walk out of this clearing. I don't care how you do it. Do the 'make a fist but don't actually punch him' thing. Take a walk. Put your headphones in. Whatever you need to do. But you keep it in check. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Sensei." His voice was quieter, more reserved.

"Alright then." The snapping of twigs and the rustling of leaves announced LaRusso and Robby's return before he could see them. "I'm gonna hold you to it, Miguel," he said softly. "Don't let me down."

"I won't."

Robby appeared first, with his right hand full of twigs. LaRusso was right behind him, his arms full of larger sticks and small branches, with a ... smile on his face?

"I'm hungry," LaRusso said. "Who's up for some hot dogs?"

* * *

An hour passed, largely in silence but in relative calm. Hot dogs were eaten, Dr. Pepper and Coke washed them down, and Johnny even handed out candy bars for dessert. Robby and Miguel were both doing a rather admirable job of keeping their tempers under control. It was a long way from the work they needed to do to resolve the root causes of their anger, but at least they weren't trying to kill each other on sight anymore.

Daniel would take any progress he could get.

If the boys were able to tolerate each other for an hour with supervision, then there was hope they'd manage to do it for however long they'd be without it.

Robby and Miguel were tackling their issues. It was time he and Johnny faced theirs.

Daniel stood up from his chair and looked across at Johnny, who was sitting on a large rock they'd found just outside the clearing and moved close to the fire. There was no reason to pretend they were going into the woods for any reason other than what they were going for. Robby already knew what was about to happen, and from the way he looked back and forth between Daniel and Johnny, it seemed that Miguel did, too.

Daniel jerked his head toward the woods, turned, and walked back the way he and Robby had gone earlier. He didn't check to make sure Johnny was following him, but the footsteps he heard behind him that told him he was.

They walked in silence for a few moments, until Daniel thought they were far enough away that the boys wouldn't be able to hear what they said.

"You know they're us, right?" It was an abrupt start to the conversation, and he had no idea if it had any bearing on what Johnny needed help with, but it was something they needed to acknowledge to each other.

"Yeah," Johnny answered. "I know."

"Who saw that coming, huh?"

Johnny snorted. "Anyone with a pulse."

Daniel couldn't stop the chuckle, even though laughing was the last thing he really felt like doing at that moment. "Yeah. Except us, apparently."

"Well, it wasn't exactly part of the plan, was it?" Johnny asked. "But, yeah."

"You had a plan?"

Johnny smirked. "No, not really."

They'd reached the fallen tree he and Robby had talked on, and Daniel stopped. He turned toward Johnny and motioned for him to sit, but Daniel remained standing. He didn't want to seem superior, and it wasn't that he wanted to dominate the conversation. But his mind and body were too restless to sit down, and he knew himself well enough to know it was only to get worse if he did.

Johnny took a seat on the tree, leaned his elbows on his knees, and looked up. "So," he said. "Now what?"

"This is your conversation," Daniel said. "You called this meeting, in a manner of speaking. So you take the lead."

"Oh." Johnny looked surprised, confused, and not the least bit prepared.

Daniel sighed and tipped his open hands toward him. "What do you need, Johnny?"

"Oh, um ..." Johnny was back to stuttering, darting glances around, and avoiding doing what he'd driven all the way out from the Valley to do.

"Oh, for God's sake, skip the word," Daniel said, dropping his hands to his sides. "You already said it. You need my help. Fine. With what? What do you want me to do?"

"Save Miguel." Johnny blurted it out, and he looked shocked that the words had left his mouth.

Daniel blinked slowly. He didn't know what he'd been expecting Johnny to ask for, but it hadn't been that.

"What?"

"Miguel, I'm … he's changed, and I …" He sighed and tried again. "You should have met him six months ago, LaRusso. You'd've liked him."

Daniel crossed his arms and snorted his opinion on that.

"No, you would have. He was a sweet kid. Weird. Kinda dorky, like you. Always talking about everyone's equal and telling me to be nice to people and spouting off all that same nonsense you do." Daniel bristled at that, but Johnny didn't seem to notice. "And I thought that by teaching him to ..." Johnny broke off and stared off into the distance for a few seconds. Then he looked up at Daniel, who had started pacing back and forth in front of him, and kept going.

"What you said, about them being us, that's true. But the weird thing is, when I met Miguel, he wasn't anything like me. When I met him, he was _you_. Right down to the getting his ass kicked by a bunch of assholes thing."

Daniel's eyes widened in surprise.

"I turned him into me. And I thought that was great, ya know? But, at the tournament, I saw him, and I heard him, and when he threw that elbow to Robby's shoulder, all I could think of was me dropping that elbow on your knee, and..." He dropped his head into his hands and ran his fingers through his hair, agitated. "I can't let that happen again. I can't let him end up the way I did. I need you to fix him."

Daniel was speechless. He stood there, mouth open, and for the first time in recent memory, he had absolutely no idea what to say.

"And I know you can do it." Johnny's words were coming out faster, stronger, as he finally gathered his thoughts together enough to express them. "Because you did it for Robby. I know you may not know it, because I bet when you met him, he put on this great show of being this wonderful kid, but that boy was me. To his bones. Trust me. He was into drugs, he'd quit school, he had these two morons he ran around with doing all kinds of shit no sixteen-year-old should be doing. And you ... without even knowing he was like that, you fixed him. You saved him. Just like I turned Miguel into me, you turned Robby into you, and it worked."

Daniel still didn't know what to say. Johnny had never said that many words to him at one time, and he was having trouble processing them all.

"So, I need you to save Miguel for me. I need you to turn him back into you, like he used to be. And that's what I came to ask." Johnny slapped his hands down on his thighs as he finished, then he looked up at Daniel to watch his reaction.

Daniel sighed, stopped pacing, and tried to figure out what he was feeling at that moment. Surprise at the request, certainly. Shock that Johnny seemed to be admitting he was out of his element when it came to kids, that he had no idea how to be a teacher and role model. Slightly flattered that Johnny thought he was some kind of miracle worker, but also ... angry. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got.

Bringing Robby into it had been a guaranteed way to trigger Daniel's feelings of responsibility and protectiveness, and Johnny knew that. He'd played it perfectly, and he'd twisted those things around to make him feel the same way about Miguel.

Daniel didn't like it when people used his own emotions against him like that. It pissed him off.

"First, you're wrong about Robby. I didn't turn him into me. I taught him how to be himself." His paternal instincts kicked in, and for once, he didn't hold them back to spare Johnny's feelings. "You're right. I don't know what he was doing before he started working for me, and honestly, I don't care. Because no matter what it was, no matter how bad you think it was, it wasn't him. He never wanted to be those things, Johnny. He never wanted to be that person. He just never had anyone to show him how to be anything else. That's what happens to sons whose fathers walk out on them."

All the blood drained from Johnny's face, and he looked like he'd just been punched in the gut. It clearly wasn't the answer he'd been expecting, but he was the one who'd decided to use Daniel's emotions as a weapon, and he was just going to have to deal with the fact that it had backfired on him.

"All he ever needed was someone to give a shit about him." Daniel was walking back and forth again, swinging his arms wildly, and he had no idea what words were going to come out of his mouth until they did. "You say he was you? Well, he probably still is, because he's your son, and that's how it works. But he's not me. If anything, he's what you would have been if you'd had Mr. Miyagi for a sensei instead of Kreese. Maybe. I don't know if you've ever had it in you to be the kind of person Robby's becoming."

Where had that come from? Maybe he'd been wrong when he told Robby he didn't hate Johnny. Hell, maybe he'd been wrong when he told himself the same thing.

"When I said they were us, I didn't mean literally. They're just like us, yeah, and they're repeating every mistake we made when we were kids, everything we did to and felt about each other. But they're not _us_. Robby isn't me, and Miguel isn't you."

"LaRusso ..."

"And now you want me to 'save' Miguel? From what? From who? From you? From himself? I mean, have you stopped to think that maybe you didn't turn him into anything? Maybe that's who and what he was all along. Maybe you just showed him how to be the asshole he always wanted to be but never could."

Part of him knew that wasn't true. Sam had really liked Miguel, so he had to have been a good kid at some point. But they were talking about a person who'd hurt someone Daniel loved more than life itself. The kid had hit his _daughter_. And Johnny expected him to save him?

"Hey, come on ..."

"Why is this so important to you now?" he asked with more than a little heat in his voice. "You didn't give a damn a week ago, when he was trying to yank your son's arm off and hitting my daughter in the face. Why do you care what kind of person he is now?"

Johnny flinched as if he'd been smacked, and Daniel almost felt bad for the way he'd been talking. He watched a dozen different emotions flash across the man's face, but when it settled on anger, any remorse Daniel may have felt vanished. "That's bullshit!" he snapped, jumping to his feet. "Miguel would never hit Sam!"

Daniel tipped his head. "Oh, but he did," he insisted. "If you don't believe me, ask Sam. Ask Robby. Hell, you probably wouldn't believe either of them, so why don't you just ask Miguel? I'm sure he'll tell you the truth."

The anger fell from Johnny's face as quickly as it had appeared. He slumped back down on the tree again, and he looked at the ground. "How?" He sounded lost, and Daniel was finding himself increasingly confused by how upset he seemed to be about everything. "I mean, why would he do that?"

Daniel shrugged. "Apparently, he was drunk." Unable to resist the urge to twist the knife, he added, "I have no idea who he could have picked that habit up from."

Johnny lifted his head, and the look in his eyes, a combination of desperation, pain and fear, made him regret the words immediately. Not only the words he'd just said, but all of them. He'd let his temper run off with his mouth again, and that never ended well. He closed his eyes and sighed.

He hated Cobra Kai. He hated the violence. He hated everything about the situations they kept finding themselves in. He hated that the boys were going through all the same shit he and Johnny had gone through and making all the same mistakes they'd made.

He didn't hate Johnny. He never had.

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

"For what?" Johnny asked with a shrug. "Being right?"

Daniel blinked in surprise. He'd heard a lot of things that day he'd never expected Johnny to say, but that had to be the top of the list. "What?"

"You're right," Johnny insisted. "About everything. About me. About Cobra Kai. About … about what I did to Robby, and what I've been doing to my kids." He ran his hands through his hair, and he looked so close to crying that Daniel barely recognized him. "I didn't mean to. I thought I could be better than he was. I thought I could do it right. But the whole thing, it's just … it's broken." Johnny shook his head and looked down again. "I didn't realize how broken it was until Miguel opened his mouth and Kreese's words came out."

"Johnny …"

"What you said down by the lake, you were right about that, too. I didn't stop Miguel. I told him to stop, and he refused, and I didn't make him. I knew what he was going to do. I should have pulled him off the mat right there. But I didn't. I wanted to win, wanted to beat you so bad, that I …" His voice was growing softer with every word. "I did let him hurt Robby. I could have stopped the whole thing, but I didn't. I just stood there and watched it happen. And I didn't do a damn thing."

Daniel didn't know what to do with that. He didn't know how to react to it. His first instinct, as always, was to think it was a trick or a mind game of some kind, but it wasn't. The pain in Johnny's eyes was too raw and too real.

"And, now I'm gonna lose them. I'm gonna lose my kids. It's my own damn fault. I taught them to be what he wanted me to be, and now he's back, and he's gonna …"

Daniel's heart stopped. "Wait. Johnny, who … who's back?"

"Kreese."

Pain. Anger. Fear. Isolation. Helplessness. Desperation. Rage. Terror.

Every emotion Daniel had felt, every emotion he'd pushed down and held down since 1985, erupted at the mention of that name. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He could barely see. He couldn't stand up anymore.

His knees buckled, and he dropped to the tree at Johnny's side. Johnny's hand was suddenly on his shoulder, and it was the only thing keeping him from falling over.

"Hey!" Johnny was shocked, and it was evident in his voice and on his face. "What's wrong? You okay?"

"You said he was dead!"

"I thought he was." Johnny pulled his hand back. "I really did. But he walked into the dojo the night of the tournament. I didn't know what do or what to say or …"

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

Confusion joined the other emotions on Johnny's face. "Why would I?" he asked sincerely. "He was _my_ sensei. I'm the one he tried to kill. Sure, he had Bobby take you out and screw your leg up, but he wasn't anything to you. Was he?"

Daniel had to keep reminding himself that Johnny had no idea what happened after he left Cobra Kai. He hadn't been there for it, and Daniel had never told him. "There's so much you don't know, Johnny. So much bad shit."

"Like what?"

"Like this isn't the first time he's faked his death." A thought occurred to him, and he closed his eyes. "God, I hope Terry's still dead. And Mike, if he …"

"LaRusso, what are you talking about?"

"It's a long story," he answered, shaking his head. It was also a story he'd never shared with anyone, not even Amanda. Only Mr. Miyagi had known the whole truth. "I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything. Just, for now, know that you're not the only one of us who's ever worn that damn snake on your back. And know that I will do anything – anything – to save those kids from going through what I went through."

"You'll help me?" Johnny seemed surprised, and after Daniel's initial reaction, how could he not be? But faced with the prospect of John Kreese's karate rising again in the Valley, of Miguel, and Aisha, and all those other kids falling under his spell, what else could he say?

"Yes," he answered. "John Kreese will not take those kids away from you. I'll stop him or die trying. I swear."

Johnny was still staring at him, and of all the emotions he'd shown in the past few minutes, the concern and anger that filled his eyes was the most powerful Daniel had seen.

"God, Daniel. What did they do to you?"

Daniel turned to face him, certain that he and Johnny were finally on the same page, and for the first time in thirty-three years, he was ready to tell someone the whole story.

A sound Daniel could neither identify nor describe erupted from the trees behind them. Before either of them could react, a branch slammed into the side of Johnny's head. He fell forward bonelessly and hit the ground, blood oozing from a gash above his left eye, out cold.

"What the fuck?!" Daniel jumped to his feet, spun around … and froze.

He was staring straight into a face he hadn't seen in more than three decades. It had aged, just as his and Johnny's had, but he still recognized it. His breath caught in his throat, his heart tried to pound its way out of his chest, and his head spun. That face had terrorized him for months, messed with his head in ways he'd never recovered from, and very nearly cost him everything, including Mr. Miyagi. He'd tormented him, beaten him, threatened him, and perhaps the worst thing, scared him so badly that he'd almost lost himself to the fear.

It was apparently the theme of the weekend, and it was his turn. Awake or not, he was staring right into the face of the nightmare that had been haunting him for more than thirty years.

"You," he hissed.

The man smiled, but it was the furthest thing from friendly Daniel had seen in a long time.

"Well, hello there, Daniel!"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"Mike."

It took every ounce of courage and strength he could summon just to force the name past his lips. Part of him wanted to believe it was a nightmare, and as long as he refused to give into it, he would wake up, safe in his bed with Amanda at his side. He closed his eyes and grit his teeth, forcing the fear down. It was a nightmare, but it wasn't a dream.

It was real. Mike Barnes was standing in front of him, and he was very, very real.

Of all the emotions screaming in his head, anger and fear were the loudest. And, as had become too common in his life the past few years, it was anger that took control of his mouth.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded. He turned toward Johnny with the intention of kneeling down to check on him. "You can't just …!"

"Ah, ah, ah." Mike's right hand slipped into the pocket of his jacket.

Daniel froze.

"Good boy." Mike raised his eyebrows, tipped his head, and grinned. "Hey, you wanna talk? Let's catch up. How've you been? How's the wife and kids?"

Daniel narrowed his eyes and glared at him. He wanted to move, and he needed to make sure Johnny was okay, but the possibility of a threat was enough to hold him still.

 _'You haven't seen a gun, LaRusso. You don't know he has one.'_

He was going to ignore the fact that the voice in his head sounded a hell of a lot like Johnny Lawrence.

 _'I don't know he doesn't. That's the problem.'_

"You can tell me all about how you became a rich Porsche salesman, and I can tell you how I became, well … remember when I beat you up for money, Daniel, and I was just a kid? What do you think I do for a living as a man?"

He didn't want to answer that question. He didn't want Mike to answer it, either.

"So, whatever you're thinking over there, whatever you're wondering, ask yourself: would I come into this unprepared? What do you think happens if you piss me off?" He held his hand, still in the jacket, out toward Johnny's head. "Do you want your buddy there to find out?"

Daniel shook his head, slowly and carefully, and backed up.

"Very good." Mike walked forward, swinging the branch like a pendulum in front of him. "You won't do that again, will you?" He kept his hand in his pocket as he moved closer, but he stayed on the other side of the tree.

 _'Come on, LaRusso. You can take this guy.'_

 _'Not from over here I can't. And not if he's got a gun.'_

"Do you want to play a game, Daniel? I like games, don't you? Let's play a game."

He remembered Mike's games all-too-well. He'd spent most of his life trying to recover from them, and there was no way he was going to let himself get sucked into another one. He glanced down at Johnny. He hadn't moved since he'd hit the ground. Was that normal? What grade of concussion did that make it? How badly hurt was he?

"Look, Mike, I don't know what you're doing here, or what you want, and I don't care. But this isn't a fucking game."

"Isn't it?" Mike laughed, and the sound of it made every hair on Daniel's back and arms stand up. "Come on, Daniel. Of course it's a game! The only question is … which game are we going to play?"

Mike started walking back and forth, his right hand still in his pocket, still swinging the branch with his left, with that damn grin on his face.

"I like Simon Says. How about you? You ever play that when you were a kid? Ya know, like … Simon says close your eyes."

 _'Don't do it. Don't you dare do it. You're a grown man, not a damn dog.'_

"No."

Mike spun on him, raising the branch in the air then slamming it against the fallen tree so hard that part of it broke off. Daniel jumped and ducked the piece that flew at his head. "Simon says close your goddamned eyes, Daniel!"

Daniel closed his eyes.

 _'What the hell are you doing? You're not just gonna do whatever this guy tells you to do?'_

 _'If it keeps him from snapping like that again, yes.'_

"Simon says put your hands on your head."

He could hear Mike walking around, but he couldn't tell where he was. The echo between the trees was throwing his depth perception off. Had he moved closer? Further away?

He put his hands on his head.

 _'He's fucking with you. It's one of his mind games. Don't let him do that again.'_

 _'I know what it is. I've dealt with this before. I can get through this.'_

"Simon says ... lace your fingers together."

Where was Mike? His voice definitely seemed closer, but Daniel couldn't be sure. Was it coming from in front of him? Or to his right? Why couldn't he tell?

He slid his hands together on the back of his head without a word.

 _'Don't just stand there!'_

 _'I don't have a choice!'_

"Turn to your right."

That came from right in front of him, no more than a foot away. When had he gotten that close? Jesus Christ.

Daniel turned.

 _'Do something!'_

 _'I can't!'_

"Ah, ah, ah." And that was whispered right in his fucking ear. He could feel Mike's breath on his neck and cheek, and he jerked his head away. "I didn't say Simon Says."

 _'Great job not getting sucked into his game, LaRusso.'_

 _'Shut up!'_

The branch slammed into the back of his right leg, and he bit off the cry of pain that tried to escape as he fell to his knees on the ground.

 _'Why didn't he hit the left one? He hits that one, you're done, right?'_

 _'Just be glad he didn't. I am.'_

"That's better." Mike wrapped his fingers around Daniel's hands and through his hair, then pulled his head back. Daniel didn't make a sound as he felt the jagged, broken end of the branch pressing into the skin under his chin. "Are you having fun, Daniel?"

He squeezed his eyes more tightly shut and held his breath. He didn't answer.

 _'Atta boy, LaRusso. Don't play his game.'_

Mike pushed the branch higher and pulled harder on his hair, arching his head back so far that it made his shoulders hurt. "I said are you having fun?!"

"You didn't say ... Simon Says." He forced the words out through his stretched throat and clenched teeth. He was ready for whatever consequences he'd have to pay for saying them.

Mike's laughter bounced through the trees. "Oh, that's good, Daniel," he said. "Very good." Then, right in his ear again, "You always were fun to play with." The branch was pulled away, and Mike shoved Daniel's head forward before letting go of his hair.

"I'm bored with this game now. Time to play something else."

Daniel knelt on the ground, with his hands on the back of his bowed head and his eyes closed.

 _'Mr. Miyagi would know how to deal with this shit. What would he say?'_

 _'Breathe in through nose, breathe out of mouth. Breathe in. Breathe out.'_

He couldn't move his arms, but he concentrated on the breath moving in and out of his lungs. He needed to focus. He needed to concentrate. He needed a plan.

"Stand up. Open your eyes, and put your hands down. You look ridiculous."

He did, grateful to at least be able to see again. Mike had crossed back to the other side of the tree. He hadn't put his right hand back in his pocket, and he was still carrying that branch around.

 _'This is not good, LaRusso. This is bad. You gotta do something.'_

 _'I'm doing the best I can.'_

"Do you like chess? I do. I hope you don't mind that I took my turn first." He pointed the branch at Johnny's still form. "I'm taking your pieces off the board, one by one."

Daniel took an instinctive step to his left, moving closer to Johnny before he realized he'd done it.

Mike turned slowly. "I saw that," he said. "I thought I told you to stay away from him."

Daniel raised his open hands in apology, but he didn't move.

Mike resumed his pacing.

"Anyway, back to our game. I've captured my first piece. I took your knight. Who's next? Which of those boys is your bishop, Daniel? And which is the pawn?"

"You're crazy," Daniel said. "I thought you were nuts before, but you have completely lost it."

The grin vanished, and when Mike whirled around, his face was flushed, his eyes were wild, and his lips were pulled back in a snarl. "I've lost exactly once in my life," he said, venom dripping from every word. "And it cost me everything. Do you have any idea what you took from me?"

"No," he answered honestly, shaking his head. "I don't."

"I was going to be a very rich man. I was going to own half the dojos in the state. I was going to be the Crown Prince of the Cobra Kai empire. All I had to do was beat you." Mike's expression grew impossibly darker. "But you … you had to go and win. With your stupid fucking kata, of all things. You and that stupid, worthless slope teacher of yours. You ruined everything!"

Daniel clenched his hands into fists, but then he took a deep breath and pushed the anger those words stirred down. His inability to control his temper had gotten him sucked into Mike, Kreese and Terry's web the first time. He couldn't afford to let it happen again.

"I learned, though," Mike continued. "I learned that if I want to win, I have to play by my own rules. And I don't lose anymore." Mike narrowed his eyes and moved toward Johnny. It was just one step, but the intention was clear.

Daniel moved to his left again. He wasn't even trying to be subtle, and he ran the risk of pissing Mike off again, but he didn't care. He'd put himself between Johnny and the very real threat that was Mike Barnes. That was what mattered.

Mike smiled again. "That's sweet," he said. "Always gotta be the hero, don't you? I bet you still think you can protect them."

Daniel didn't answer.

"But, see, the thing is …" Mike waved the branch around, gesturing at the trees with his arms as he spoke. "You don't know how many moves I've already made, do you? I've been following you all day, and you never spotted me. I could have killed you a dozen times over, and you'd never have known what hit you. You have no idea. You don't even know if your pawn and bishop are still standing."

Daniel's blood froze in his veins, and he had to force himself to stay where he was. His heart was pounding, his head was swimming, and a giant black hole had opened in his stomach. He wanted nothing more than to run back to camp to make sure the boys were okay, but he couldn't leave Johnny alone with Mike. But the boys … they were just kids. He couldn't let them be hurt. Yes, he was mad at Miguel, but he was still just a boy, and he wouldn't stand a chance against Mike. Robby's shoulder wasn't fully healed, basketball in the driveway notwithstanding, and he wouldn't be able to defend himself, either. And Johnny was injured, unconscious, and defenseless. He couldn't let him be hurt any more than he already had been.

He'd sworn to Johnny that he'd do anything to help him protect those kids. With every minute that passed and every word Mike spoke, the enormity of that vow only grew. It was becoming obvious that he was going to be forced to keep that promise a whole lot sooner than he could have expected. But no matter what happened to him, Johnny would make it off that mountain to stop Kreese. And the boys would be safe with him.

Mike's sudden reappearance couldn't have been a coincidence. He knew with everything in him that it wasn't. The timing was too perfect. If the plan was to take Daniel out, then so be it, but he had to make damn sure Johnny and the boys got out of the mess he'd somehow managed to get them dragged into. He didn't know how much damage Mike had already done, but he had to keep him from doing any more.

What was it Mike had said? He always won because he always played by his own rules? Maybe Daniel could take control of the situation after all. Maybe he wasn't as choiceless as he thought he was.

"You wanna play a game?" Daniel asked. His voice was rough, and he had to force the words out, but he thought that might actually work in his favor. Maybe it would be best if he sounded like he'd been beaten. He had a plan, but he only had one chance to pull it off.

 _'Don't play his game. Make him play yours.'_

"Okay. I'll play. But it needs to be something more entertaining than chess." He had to make it interesting. He had to make it worth Mike's while. He had to make it appeal to Mike's twisted and warped sense of humor. "You up for some hide and seek?"

 _'What the actual fuck are you doing?'_

 _'If he's focused on me, he'll leave them alone.'_

Mike's eyebrows shot up, and his grin widened. "Oh, I like that, Daniel. I like that a lot." His gaze fell on Johnny again, and Daniel felt his muscles stiffen. "You're still thinking you're getting off this mountain, though, aren't you? You expecting blondie there to wake up and save you?"

Daniel shook his head slowly. "No," he said. "He wouldn't do that, because this has nothing to do with him. He hates me almost as much as you do, anyway."

 _'No, he doesn't. You know that's not true.'_

 _'Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. It doesn't matter right now, anyway.'_

No matter how much Johnny might hate him, Mike hated him more.

"Besides, we're not going to play here." No, they weren't going to be anywhere near Johnny and the boys. If he managed to pull it off, the three of them were going to be completely out of harm's way just as soon as Johnny was back on his feet. "Where's the fun in that? It's not hide and seek if we can see each other, is it?"

 _'This might be a bad idea.'_

 _'I know these woods. He doesn't.'_

Mike rubbed his chin, and Daniel knew he was seriously considering it. "So, which one of us is It?"

"We both are," he answered. "We both hide, and we both seek. That way, it's about which one of us finds the other first."

 _'That isn't safe. It's a bad idea. It's stupid.'_

 _'But it'll work. And it's all I've got.'_

Mike nodded in amused agreement. "That would be fun."

Daniel had him.

 _'Oh, you've got him, huh?'_

 _'Shut up.'_

"Just one condition before we start," Daniel said.

"My rules!" Mike screamed, exploding forward once more.

Daniel managed to not jump when the branch hit the tree that time. He raised his hands in placation, but he held his ground. "Of course," he said. "You make the rules, Mike. It's your game. All I ask is one small favor."

"What?"

"I need to know there's a point in playing. Let me see for myself that the boys are okay."

The sound of that laugh made Daniel's hair stand on end. "Oh, that's adorable." If Mike had one weakness, it was the same one he'd always had – arrogance. He was so convinced of his own invincibility that he was going to give Daniel what he wanted. "Fine. Call the brats up here. But you let me see your face the entire time. And just remember, for all you know, I can shoot them all down right in front of you."

Mike put his right hand back in his pocket, pointed the branch at Daniel with his left, and stepped back until he was almost hidden in the treeline again. "We're playing by my rules, Daniel. And if you break them, you're not the only one who never leaves this mountain."

Daniel nodded slowly, then turned his head just far enough to yell over his shoulder.

"Robby!" He shouted as loudly as he could, but he never took his eyes from Mike's face. "Miguel!" He took a deep breath and resisted the urge to glance down and check on Johnny, to see if he was starting to come around at all. "Boys! Come here!"

He heard them before he could see them, the crunch of the leaves beneath their feet and the snapping of twigs as they ran telling him just how fast they were moving. They burst through the trees, and Daniel saw them from the corner of his eye. Miguel appeared first, followed less than a second later by Robby, who was holding his left arm with his right, keeping it immobile as he ran.

It took them both less than a second to react to what they saw.

"Sensei!"

"Dad!"

There was a slight hesitation as Miguel's steps faltered. Daniel didn't understand what had caused it, but he didn't have time to wonder about it, either. It didn't last very long, and they were both on their knees at Johnny's side before he could have asked, anyway. Neither of them had seen Mike yet.

"He's okay, boys," Daniel said carefully. He didn't turn toward them. Mike did, though, and while he was looking away, Daniel slipped his right hand into the pocket of his jeans, hoping like hell that he looked like he was just trying to appear casual. "He'll be fine."

Miguel jumped back to his feet, stalked toward him angrily, and shoved Daniel in the back. He stumbled forward, but he caught his balance quickly, and his gaze never wavered.

"What the hell did you do?" Miguel demanded. "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing," he answered. "He hit his head. He'll come around. Just give him a minute."

It was Robby who noticed Daniel's odd behavior, and he pushed himself to his feet slowly. He followed Daniel's gaze into the woods, and he gasped when he realized they weren't alone. Miguel shoved him again, obviously not having noticed that anything was wrong. Robby reached out and put his right hand on Miguel's arm, pulling him back slightly. Miguel spun on him.

"Of course you'd choose him!" he spat. "You would pick LaRusso over your own _father_!"

The hatred in Miguel's voice turned Daniel's stomach, but again, he didn't have time to worry about what was causing it. Johnny could figure it out and work them through their issues. Later. Much later. When none of them were anywhere near the mountain.

Robby shook his head slowly, and he tipped his head very slightly toward the trees. Miguel picked up on the subtlety of the movement, and he turned his eyes without turning his head.

Mike knew he'd been spotted, so he stepped forward, laughing again. He flung the branch toward them, laughing harder when Daniel flinched involuntarily at the sound of it hitting the fallen tree.

The whole situation had been intentional. Mike had stayed in front of the treeline on purpose. He'd known the boys would see him. That's why he'd made Daniel look at him. He'd wanted them to see him.

Mike hadn't _allowed_ Daniel's condition. He'd used it. He hadn't let him call the boys up because of arrogance. He'd done it for leverage. Daniel had wanted Johnny and the boys together so it would be easier for them to get away. Mike had wanted them together so it would be easier for him to take them out. He should have realized that.

 _'Fuck!'_

"Boys," Daniel said slowly, his mind scrambling for a way to pull Mike's attention back to him. "That's … that's Mike. He's a … friend, an _old_ friend … of mine." He was actually impressed by how well he was lying, but he couldn't keep it up forever. "I'm just gonna go talk to him. I'll be right back."

"Mr. LaRusso, no!" Robby jumped forward and grabbed his arm, eyes wide. "You can't! You …"

Daniel shook his head, slightly but quickly, stopping Robby before he got started. There was no point in giving Mike any more ammunition than he already had. He did use the excuse Robby had just given him to pull his hand out of his pocket.

"I'm fine, Robby," he insisted softly, pressing the palm of his right hand against the back of Robby's. He felt the boy's hand turn under his, and he wrapped his fingers around it. "Stay with your dad. Take _care_ of him." In his peripheral vision, he saw Robby's eyes widen ever-so-slightly, and Daniel knew he understood. "Miguel," he said without turning around. "Johnny needs you. He'll wake up soon, and he'll need _both_ of you."

"Yeah, Mr. LaRusso. Of course." Miguel had obviously picked up on the seriousness of the situation, because when he answered, he didn't sound angry anymore. He sounded like the scared and confused kid he had to be.

"I'll be back. We'll get Johnny to the _hospital_ , and he'll be _fine_." Without being able to see Miguel, Daniel didn't know if he had caught on to everything he wasn't saying, but he was confident that Robby had. When Robby pulled his hand away and put it back inside the sling, looking for all the world like he was just supporting his injured arm, Daniel stepped forward.

"Okay," he said, jumping up on and then down from the tree to cross it. "Let's do this. Let's go _talk_."

Daniel refused to look back as he walked away. He trusted that the boys would get Johnny and themselves to safety. All he had to do was keep Mike away from them long enough for them to do it. He closed his eyes briefly, but he'd opened them again before he reached Mike's side.

Mike made a show of throwing his arm across Daniel's shoulders with a huge smile on his face. "Sure is great to see you again, buddy! I've missed you so much."

Daniel's skin crawled at the touch, but he didn't let it show. Once they were far enough in that the boys couldn't see them, Daniel threw Mike's arm off and started to run. Mike's laughter echoed through the trees behind him. If he was playing by the rules, Daniel had until the count of twenty before Mike started following. Whether he was running away from Mike or from the lie he'd just told the boys about coming back, he didn't know, and he didn't think it mattered either way. The result was the same.

The boys would take Johnny and get off the mountain. And Mike would be Daniel's problem to deal with alone.

* * *

Miguel and Robby stood, side-by-side, and watched Mr. LaRusso go into the woods with the stranger he'd called Mike. Silence descended around them, but the tension of the past few minutes remained.

"What's going on?" Miguel asked softly. "What the hell just happened?"

Robby shook his head. "I don't know. But whatever it is, it's bad. This is so fucking bad." His breath hitched in his throat when he realized the implication of what Mr. LaRusso had put in his hand. "He's not coming back."

"What?" Miguel turned toward him, eyes wide. "How do you know that?"

Robby pulled his right hand out of the sling, opened his fingers and held it out to show Miguel what he'd been given. Miguel turned his head back and forth quickly, between the woods, Johnny, and the keys in Robby's hand.

"Who the hell was that guy?"

"I have no idea," Robby answered, shaking his head slowly.

"What do we … how do we … what are we supposed to do?"

Robby hadn't moved, and he didn't know if he even could. He was numb, from head to toe. "We're supposed to take my dad and leave," he said. Without his car, Mr. LaRusso wouldn't be able to get off the mountain. He'd given Robby his only means of escape. "Without him."

Miguel was the first to move, as if Robby's words had reminded him they weren't the only two people there. "Sensei!" He fell to his knees at Johnny's side again, pushing the hair away from the bloody gash above his eye. "Sensei, wake up!"

Robby watched for a few seconds, torn between the man on the ground and the one who'd walked into the woods.

There was no doubt that the man named Mike was a threat. But what kind of threat was he? And what, exactly, had happened? How did his dad end up on the ground, unconscious and bleeding? Was Mr. LaRusso already hurt, too? Why hadn't he taken the guy on and fought him off? Robby knew for a fact that he could. Why had he chosen to go further up the mountain with him, alone?

There was only one answer.

"He's drawing him away," he said softly. "He's giving us time to run."

"Seriously?" Miguel's voice broke into his thoughts. "You heard what he said. He just took off with a buddy of his. Left Sensei here, hurt, and took off. They're probably leaving together."

Robby turned his head and looked down at him. "Are you that fucking stupid? Who the hell do you think did that to my dad?"

Miguel looked up at him. "Yeah, your _dad_ ," he said. His voice was sharp again, angry, but Robby didn't feel like reacting to it. "Ya know, the guy laying here on the ground bleeding while you're staring at the trees? He's your _dad_?"

"Yeah," Robby answered. "I know that."

"That's funny," Miguel shot back. "Because I didn't."

"Wait, what?" Robby closed his eyes and shook his head. "You didn't know?"

"No, I didn't know! How the hell was I supposed to know? No one told me!" Miguel busied himself checking on Johnny, though it was obvious he didn't actually know what he was doing. His hands hovered above Johnny's chest and shoulders, like he wanted to touch him but was afraid to. "Apparently, I don't deserve to know. It's not like it's important or anything ..."

Robby rolled his eyes and turned back to the woods. "Jesus, whatever, man. Get over yourself. We've got more important shit to worry about."

"Yeah," Miguel spat. "Like your _dad_ isn't waking up, and you're just standing there!"

Mr. LaRusso's orders had been clear. He'd left no doubt what he expected them to do.

 _'I'll be okay. I'll be back.'_

 _But he didn't come back._

 _Darkness. Pain. Blood._

 _On the ground. On his hands. On his face. On his clothes._

 _Where was it coming from?_

 _'Mr. LaRusso?'_

 _'Robby …'_

 _Where was he? He could hear him. Why couldn't he see him? Why couldn't he move?_

 _'Mr. LaRusso!'_

 _'Go ...'_

 _He was lying on the ground in the darkness. He tried to stand up, but he couldn't._

 _His leg was bent wrong. His hands were pressed against his stomach._

 _And there was blood. So much blood. Everywhere._

 _'I'm coming!'_

 _He had to get to him. He had to help him._

 _'Mr. LaRusso!'_

 _'Robby …'_

 _Pain. Darkness. Brown eyes closing. Dying. He was dying._

 _He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't reach him._

 _He couldn't save him._

 _'Robby … go …'_

"No!" he shouted. Eyes he didn't remember closing shot open as he pushed the nightmare away.

Miguel jerked his head up in shocked surprise. "What?"

Mr. LaRusso's orders be damned. Robby wasn't going anywhere.

His decision made, Robby turned quickly and took the three steps to his father's side. He knelt down next to Miguel and held the keys out to him. "Take these," he said.

Miguel took them, but it was clear he didn't know why he was being told to. "Wake him up. Get him out of here, you hear me? Take care of my dad for me. Get him to the hospital."

He took one last look at Johnny. He knew what he had to do, but there was a part of him that was still conflicted.

That was his father in front of him, injured, maybe badly, and he needed to stay with him. He'd been ordered to stay with him. But how could he do that knowing Mr. LaRusso was out there alone? What was happening to him? What had he given himself over to? What was he sacrificing himself to protect them from?

The nightmare wouldn't leave him alone. The thought was ridiculous, and he was stupid for even thinking it, but he couldn't get it out of his mind. He knew – he _knew_ – that if someone wasn't there to stop it, Mr. LaRusso was going to die.

Robby couldn't let that happen. He wouldn't let that happen. He would trust Miguel to take care of his sensei, and he would go save his.

"I'll be back," he whispered, brushing the blond hair away from his father's face gently. "We'll be back."

He pushed himself to his feet, slipped the sling off over his head, and dropped it to the ground. Without another word, he turned toward the fallen tree.

"No!" Miguel was suddenly in front of him, his hands on his chest, shoving him back. "You said we're supposed to stay here!"

"I don't care," he said, trying to push by him.

Miguel shoved him again. "You can't leave him!"

"I can't leave Mr. LaRusso, either!" Miguel reached out to grab him, but Robby brought his hands up in a block, side-stepped, and spun past him. "You don't understand."

"No, I do understand!" Miguel yelled at his back. "I understand you're walking out on your father when he needs you. And you're doing it because of LaRusso? Really?"

Robby turned on his heel, raised his hand, and pointed right at Miguel's face. "You need to shut the fuck up. You don't know shit about me, my dad, or Mr. LaRusso."

"I'm not letting you leave," Miguel said simply.

"Whatever, man." He started to turn away once more.

Miguel grabbed his upper arm. "Robby, stop!"

"Robby? Miguel?" The voice came from behind them, and they both turned toward it.

"Sensei!"

"Dad!"

Cloudy blue eyes blinked at them as they knelt beside him again. Johnny tried to push himself up from the ground. "Ow, my head."

"Take it easy," Robby said.

"You're bleeding," Miguel added. "Be careful."

They got him upright and leaned against the tree, and he pressed the heel of his hand against his left eye. "What the hell hit me?"

"I think it was a tree branch," Miguel answered, glancing at the one the Mike guy had thrown at them.

"You'll be okay," Robby said. "Take a minute to get your legs back. Then Miguel is gonna …"

" _We_ are gonna," Miguel interrupted, glaring across at him, "take you to the hospital."

Robby shook his head as Johnny muttered, "That sounds like a good idea."

Silence fell again.

Robby needed to go. He really needed to go. Every minute that passed was another minute Mr. LaRusso was alone and in danger. But he couldn't leave his dad until he knew that he hadn't suffered any serious damage, and that Miguel would be able to get him down the trail and back to the car.

While those thoughts were swirling through Robby's head, Johnny was looking around the woods in confusion. His eyebrows lowered, and he tilted his head.

"What is it?"

"Sensei? Are you okay?"

"Wait … wait!" The confusion in Johnny's eyes turned to alarm. The fact that he'd been unconscious less than two minutes earlier didn't seem to matter as he jumped to his feet and turned in a circle. Then all the blood drained from his face, and he started to pitch forward. The boys jumped to their feet, grabbed his arms, and caught him before he fell.

"Easy, Dad."

Johnny was shaking, wobbling, and pale as a ghost, but judging by the look on his face, whatever had startled him hadn't faded. He turned his head back and forth between the boys.

"Where is he?" he demanded. "Where the hell is LaRusso?"


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

"Come out, come out, wherever you are …"

Daniel ducked behind yet another tree and crouched behind the weeds and vines that surrounded it. He pressed his shoulders against the trunk, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. He'd been moving from tree to tree, from rock to rock, for at least twenty minutes. He'd been staying just far enough ahead to hide while making sure Mike knew roughly where he was.

It was a calculated risk, because if Mike got close enough to get a hand on him, it was over. But he knew those woods, he knew where the best hiding spots were, and he knew how to move between them. He'd been leading Mike along the most confusing path he could think of. Zigging and zagging, bobbing and weaving, crossing back through places they'd already been three and four times, all to keep Mike from getting a solid sense of where they were.

Despite what Daniel had said to get Mike to agree, the game wasn't about which of them found the other first. If it had been, it would have been over too quickly. Daniel had known exactly where Mike was the entire time. The same could not be said in reverse.

"Motherfucker," Mike muttered as he crashed through the undergrowth. "Where the hell are you?"

Daniel smiled, knowing those words hadn't been meant for his ears. It was working. Mike was lost, and he was getting frustrated. That was a good thing, but Daniel had to be careful. If he got too frustrated, there was nothing to stop him from giving up and trying to find his way back to the campsite. And if he figured out which direction to go, he'd be there in less than ten minutes.

If he did that, and if he turned his frustration on Johnny and the boys ... no. He knew what he was doing, and that wasn't going to happen.

He wouldn't let it happen.

"Which way did you go?"

He held his breath as Mike walked behind the tree he was leaning on. He was no more than two feet from him, and Mike had no idea.

"I know you're here somewhere," Mike said. "You can't hide forever."

He had to admit, the man had a point. He hadn't exactly been thinking long-term when he'd come up with the hide and seek plan. But he didn't need long-term. He only needed enough time for the other three to get away.

Once Johnny was on his feet, it would only take a couple of minutes to get back to the campsite. It was another fifteen from the camp to the car. It would probably take them a little longer with Johnny hurt, because the boys wouldn't want him moving too quickly. So, if he gave them forty-five minutes, that should be more than enough time.

Of course, that was assuming Johnny had regained consciousness. If he hadn't, then he had more wrong with him than just a concussion, and they had a much bigger problem.

"You do know this whole thing is pointless, right?" Mike's voice had moved further away, and Daniel let himself breathe again. "You can keep trying. You can pull out all your little tricks, but it won't work. I don't lose, Daniel. I will find you."

He turned his head to the left and watched Mike disappear into the woods a bit further up the mountain. As soon as he was completely out of sight, Daniel leaned around the other side of the tree. He'd learned fairly quickly how to use the echoes to his advantage, how to bounce his voice off the trees to keep Mike's attention pointed in the right direction without giving away his exact position.

"Well, you're going the wrong way!" he called out.

He ducked, darted back to his right, and slid behind a large boulder. He moved around it silently, back to his left. After a mental ten count, he peeked around the side.

"Oh, you think you're clever, don't you?" Mike laughed as he approached the tree Daniel had been hiding behind only seconds earlier. "Got news for ya, Dannyboy. You're not as smart as you think you are."

Mike stepped around the tree. When he realized Daniel wasn't there, he kicked at the underbrush for a few seconds, and then he spun around. He turned his head back and forth, and he even looked up into the tree.

Daniel grinned. He was having entirely too much fun with what was, overall, an incredibly serious and potentially deadly situation.

Mike shook his head and circled the tree again, mumbling curses about Daniel's parentage as he headed off in the same direction he'd gone before.

Daniel glanced back at him, counted to twenty in his head, and then broke cover. He took off in the opposite direction, crossing back over the route they'd taken to get where they were. He let Mike see him, but he stayed far enough ahead that he couldn't catch him.

"Ready or not, here I come!"

Daniel kept running, darting through and around the trees, until he knew for sure that Mike was following him. Then he turned, doubled back, and cut across the path they'd just made.

"Cute," he heard Mike call out as he ran past him. "Real cute, Daniel!"

He kept moving. He knew exactly where he was going. There was a pile of boulders and fallen trees just ahead that looked solid from the outside and would give him complete cover. He put on a last burst of speed to push himself out of Mike's line of sight, dove behind the rocks, and then rolled under the trees.

Mike broke through the treeline only seconds after Daniel stopped moving, and he looked around uncertainly. He had to know Daniel wasn't far away, but he obviously didn't know where he was.

"Gotta admit," Mike said as he walked forward slowly. "You're better at this than I thought you'd be."

Daniel smiled.

* * *

"He did _what_?"

Johnny's first attempt at being vertical hadn't ended well, so the boys had made him sit on the tree. They'd spent more time fussing over him than he thought they should, and it had taken way too long for his question about LaRusso to be answered. Miguel had finally started telling him what he knew about what had happened, but he didn't know much.

None of them knew much. Johnny had been unconscious for the whole thing, and the boys had still been at camp. Whatever had gone on, the only person who knew about it was the person who wasn't there to tell him.

"He left," Miguel repeated with a shrug. "He gave Robby his keys, told us to take you to the hospital, and they went off in the woods together. Guy had his arm around him and everything."

Johnny leaned his head into his hands, rubbing his temples with his fingers. That didn't make any sense. Miguel's answers didn't do anything but give him more questions.

 _'Who is this guy? What's he doing here? What the hell happened? Why would LaRusso leave?'_

"And you're sure he called the guy Mike?"

Miguel nodded. "Yeah. He said he was a friend of his. Why? Do you know him?"

"No," Johnny said. He started to shake his head, but he thought better of it. "I have no idea who he is. He mentioned a Mike, but he only said his name once, and he didn't sound like he was talking about a friend."

"What?" Miguel sounded confused. "But he said …"

"He was lying," Robby said softly. He was standing a few feet off to Johnny's left, facing away from him, staring into the woods. Those were the first words he'd spoken in ten minutes.

Johnny turned toward him.

"You sure?" he asked.

Robby nodded slowly. "He was acting ... wrong. Not like him. He was just standing there, in front of you, staring at the guy. And he wasn't moving. At all. He didn't look at us when we came up, or turn around when he talked to us. It was like he … I don't know … couldn't? Does that make sense?"

Johnny tilted his head. Thinking back over all the years he'd known LaRusso, he didn't think he'd ever seen him stand still. He was constantly in motion. He even talked with his hands. So if he hadn't been moving, he'd have been putting a lot of effort into it. He could only think of one reason he would do that. "Like he'd been told not to?" he asked. "Or he thought something bad might happen if he did?"

"Yeah," Robby answered, nodding his head quickly. "Yeah, exactly like that. And ..." He swallowed hard and bit his lip.

"And what?" Johnny prompted.

"He was scared," Robby said. "Really scared."

"I didn't think he was scared," Miguel said. "It was weird, yeah. But he left with the guy. And he made it really clear that we're supposed to take you to the hospital. _Both_ of us." He said that with a pointed look at Robby that Johnny was going to need an explanation for at some point. "I think we should do what he said. He's gone. You're awake. And we need to go." He reached out to grab Johnny's arm to pull him to his feet.

"Miguel." Johnny's voice made him stop. When he looked up, Johnny shook his head slowly. Miguel crossed his arms and rolled his eyes, but he stayed where he was. Maybe Miguel had a point. Maybe LaRusso had just gone off with a friend, but Robby knew him better than any of them did. If Robby said he was scared, then he was probably scared. Johnny turned to his left again. "Robby?"

Robby shrugged. "He didn't want us to know," he said. "He tried really hard to hide it, but ..." He shook his head in frustration. "Whoever that Mike guy is, Mr. LaRusso's afraid of him."

"So, of course, he took off alone with him."

Johnny wasn't actually surprised. He could see LaRusso leaving with someone he was scared of, if he thought it would keep that person away from innocent people – away from the boys, away from Robby. It would take a lot to scare him that much, but he'd said there was a lot of bad shit he didn't know about. Bad shit that had to do with Kreese, somebody named Terry, some guy named Mike, and ...

 _"You're not the only one of us who's ever worn that damn snake on your back."_

LaRusso had been Cobra Kai. When and how the hell that had happened, Johnny had no idea, but they'd done something to him. Something bad enough that he was willing to do anything to keep it from happening to anyone else. And that Mike guy had been part of it. Johnny couldn't remember the exact words LaRusso had used, but he understood his meaning.

He was going to protect the kids. He'd save them or ...

 _"... die trying ..."_

 _"I'll ... die trying ..."_

 _"I'll stop him or die trying."_

 _'Shit.'_

 _Blood … On the ground. On his clothes. On his hands._

 _'You're alright, LaRusso. It's okay. You're okay.'_

 _Darkness. Pain. Blood. So much blood._

 _'It hurts!'_

"Shit!"

Both boys turned toward him as he pushed himself to his feet. He hadn't meant to say it out loud, but he hadn't been able to stop it. His vision blurred around the edges, and he closed his eyes until it passed. He felt the boys moving toward him, but he held his hands up to keep them back. He didn't have time for them to worry about him. He knew what LaRusso was doing, and he knew what was going to happen.

He couldn't let it happen.

"Which way did they go?"

* * *

"At least you're putting up a fight. You're trying to make it look like a challenge. And maybe you're even starting to believe you have a chance."

Daniel used his ears to keep track of Mike's position, and he kept his eyes on the one weak spot in his cover. There was a small hole between the trees in front of him, and if Mike looked closely enough, he'd see him. His blue sweatshirt wasn't exactly good camouflage. He knew where he was going next, but he couldn't move until Mike was far enough away. Until then, he just had to stay still and stay hidden.

"Ya know what the best part of this whole thing is?" Mike had been talking non-stop for several minutes. He was mostly saying the same things over and over again, about not losing and that he'd find him eventually, all the same things he'd been saying since they'd started. But that was new, and it was different enough that it caught Daniel's attention. "It's that you think I'm the odd man out. You think I'm the one who's up here alone."

 _'Don't listen to him. Whatever he says, it's a lie.'_

 _'I know that.'_

"You actually think you're protecting them? Blondie and the brats?" Through the gap in the trees, he saw Mike bend down, pick up a small branch, and start swinging it around like he'd done earlier. "You think they give a shit about you, Daniel? You think they didn't sell you out?"

 _'He's fucking with your head again. Stop listening.'_

 _'Kinda hard to ignore him.'_

"You think this is a coincidence? After thirty-four years? Come on. I know you're a dumbass, but you gotta be smarter than that."

 _'Don't let him in your head. Don't give him that power.'_

 _'I'm not giving him anything.'_

"Blondie opens Cobra Kai back up. His kid weasels his way into your life." Mike smacked the branch against the trees and rocks as he walked past them. "John Kreese shows up, back from the dead, out of nowhere. And I find you on top of a mountain. You think it wasn't all connected? Think about it, Daniel."

 _'Don't believe him. He's lying.'_

 _'Johnny. Robby. Kreese. Mike. Cobra Kai.'_

"You were right when you said Blondie wasn't gonna save you. And you were even half-right about why." He thrust the branch into an overgrown patch of weeds at the base of one of the trees.

 _'Stop that. You know what's real. You were there.'_

 _'But why Cobra Kai? He could have called it anything. Why that?'_

Daniel closed his eyes, leaned his forehead against his hands, and breathed as deeply as he dared. Mike was getting closer. That branch was going to hit the trees above him soon, and he had to focus on staying still. If he jumped or twitched at all, he was done.

"He really does hate you, but this has everything to do with him."

 _'He's fucking psycho, LaRusso. Psychos lie.'_

 _'Unless they tell the truth.'_

With that swing, Mike hit the rocks behind him. Daniel squeezed his eyes more tightly shut.

"Bet you never imagined he was in on it from the beginning, did you?"

 _'No, he wasn't!'_

 _'What if he was?'_

Mike slammed the branch into the trees on the outside edge of the pile. Every muscle in Daniel's body tensed.

"Hell, he started it."

 _'No, he didn't!'_

 _'What if he did?'_

That one smashed down on the tree right next to him. Daniel caught his lip between his teeth and bit down on it.

"He's the whole reason I'm here, Daniel."

 _'No, he isn't!'_

 _'What if he is?'_

The tree above his head shook from the violence of the impact. Daniel held his breath, clenched his teeth, and pressed his face into his arms.

It was just one of Mike's stupid damn mind games. It had to be. It wasn't true. It couldn't be.

 _'All a lie. Every word. Because psychos lie.'_

 _'Unless the truth would hurt more.'_

The next smack came from a few feet off to his right. Daniel took a deep, shaky, silent breath, and let the tension drain from his body and into the dirt beneath him. He tried to send the doubts starting to cloud his mind with it.

Mike kept talking and hitting things as he moved away, but Daniel wasn't listening anymore. He'd already heard more than enough. He shook his head to clear it, and he rose up on his knees. Even if Mike was telling the truth _'he's not he's not he's not'_ , he didn't have time to worry about it. Mike was far enough away to give him the room he needed to move, and he had more important things to focus on.

He crawled out of his hiding place and pushed himself to his feet. He stood there for a few seconds, watching Mike's back as he walked into the trees. He needed to knock Mike off-balance again. He needed to take back the control and clarity he was on the verge of losing.

"Hey, Mike?"

Mike froze and turned around, openly shocked to see Daniel standing behind him, out in the open.

"You're a terrible liar."

Daniel winked and took off into the woods again.

* * *

For the second time in less than an hour, Miguel and Robby stood in silence and stared at the trees one of their sensei had disappeared into.

"Ya know, for two people who think we shouldn't be here alone, they sure keep leaving us here alone, don't they?"

Robby didn't answer him, but Miguel hadn't really expected him to.

Robby had put up one hell of a fight when Sensei told them he was going after LaRusso. He'd tried to stop him. He'd tried to go himself. He'd yelled, and he'd argued, and it hadn't done any good. Miguel had done his best to talk him out of it, too, but he hadn't been any more successful.

 _"What he's doing, Robby, luring this Mike guy away? He's doing it to protect you." He'd looked over Robby's shoulder at Miguel then. "He's doing it to protect both of you. Don't make him waste it. Whatever happens, he needs to know that you boys are safe. You can't be here alone. You've got to go."_

 _"He's doing it to protect you, too, Dad! Why do you think he was standing between you when we got here?"_

 _"Sensei, please. You're hurt. You're still bleeding. You need to go to the hospital."_

 _"I have a headache. I'm fine."_

 _"At least let us come wi..."_

 _"No," he said, shaking his head slowly. "Someone has to go after LaRusso, but it's just gonna be me. I'm doing it alone."_

 _"Dad ...!"_

 _He held up a finger, and Robby stopped. "We're wasting time we don't have. Look, I'll call you as soon as I find him, okay? But this is not a fight you're gonna win. I'm the adult. I'm in charge. And I am telling you two to get in LaRusso's car and get the hell off this mountain. Is that clear?"_

 _Neither of them answered._

 _"I said is that clear?!"_

 _"Yes!"_

 _"Yes, Sensei."_

 _"I'll be back." He started to turn away, but he looked back at them across his shoulder. "No. We'll be back. I will find him, and I will bring him back, Robby. I promise."_

 _Then he jumped over the tree and started running._

"Come on," Miguel said with a sigh, tapping Robby lightly on the shoulder as he turned. "Let's go."

Robby didn't move, other than to shake his head.

"Robby," he said softly. "They both told us to go. Don't you think we should …?"

"Do you really want to?" Robby didn't look at him when he spoke. "Do you really want to leave them here?"

Miguel sighed and turned back around. Truthfully, he'd not really had a problem with leaving LaRusso behind, when he thought the man had abandoned them with an injured Sensei Lawrence to go hang out with a friend of his. The things Sensei and Robby had both said since then, though, about the way LaRusso had acted and what that meant, about him not moving, and being scared, and going off with that Mike guy anyway, just to protect the three of them, well … Maybe he'd changed his mind about that.

When Sensei said he was going after him, he'd definitely changed his mind. And as soon as he was gone, Miguel understood exactly what Robby had been feeling and thinking and wanting to do since LaRusso left.

"No," he answered. "I don't."

Robby nodded silently.

"But what else can we do?" Miguel asked.

"We can go after them!"

"We really can't." Robby spun on him, just as Miguel had done to him earlier. "Come on, Robby, what are we gonna do? We've both been training less than a year, and you've only got one arm. We have no idea where they are. And even if we did, you said yourself that Mr. LaRusso's afraid of that guy, right? If he's afraid of him, as long as he's been doing karate, how bad does he have to be? What the hell could we do that they can't? Other than make them worry about us when they probably have bigger shit to deal with? We wouldn't be helping them. We'd be ... getting in their way."

"You're saying we should leave."

Robby was pissed, and Miguel couldn't blame him. He was pissed, too. He was pissed about their fight earlier. He was pissed his camping trip with Sensei had gotten so screwed up. He was pissed no one had told him Robby was Sensei's son. He was pissed Sensei was hurt. He was pissed they kept getting left behind. He was pissed there was nothing they could do about any of it.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I'm saying we should do what they told us to do. We shouldn't stay _here_." He raised his eyebrows and pointed at the ground. "Look, Sensei said he'd call when he finds him, right?"

Robby nodded. "Yeah."

"Okay. So, we head down to Mr. LaRusso's car, like they told us to. But, maybe we walk slow. And maybe, when we get there, we don't leave right away." The words started coming faster as the plan solidified in his mind. "Maybe we wait for that phone call. Because maybe they'll need us, and maybe they won't. But either way, we'll be here. Because maybe, for right now, even if we can't help them … this is where we belong." He sighed. He didn't want to admit it. He wanted to hold on to the anger and hatred, because he felt justified in both. But it wasn't going to help anyone. "Both of us."

Robby tilted his head, lowered his eyebrows, and looked at him. His face said he was seriously considering what Miguel had just said, but he hadn't decided if he should trust him or not.

"Our shit," Miguel said, waving his hand back and forth between them. "It can wait. I'm not saying it's over, and I'm not saying we're gonna be friends or anything. But, your sensei, my sensei, your dad … they might be in real trouble. And you were right. Until this is done, we've got bigger things to worry about. It's more important for us to be ready if they need us than to waste our time and energy fighting with each other. Right?"

Robby nodded firmly. "Okay," he said. "For them, yeah. I can do that."

"Good," Miguel said, turning away one last time. "Because if you'd said no, I'd have had to kick your ass."

Robby snorted. "You could have tried."

Miguel glanced back at him. He was still upset, but at least he wasn't staring into the woods anymore, and he was starting to walk away. He kept looking over his shoulder, obviously not completely comfortable with the idea of leaving.

Miguel couldn't help but do the same. He knew that getting to the car was the best they could do under the circumstances, but he couldn't shake the nervousness that had started growing in the pit of his stomach. Something terrible was about to happen. He had no idea what it was or why he felt the way he did, but he knew it was real.

And whatever it was, he and Robby needed to be ready for it.

"Come on," he said again, tilting his head toward the trail.

Robby nodded and picked his sling up from the ground.

They walked back to camp together.

* * *

The tree had been there longer than Daniel had known the place existed. In the years that had passed since he'd first found it, it had never moved, never shifted, and never broken. It was as much a part of the mountain as it had become part of his training method. It was the place he'd taken both Sam and Robby to find their balance, and he could think of nowhere better to stop running and find his own.

He glanced at his watch as he walked into the clearing. He'd done what he'd set out to do. He'd managed to both evade Mike and get him so twisted and turned around on the way up that he'd be lucky to find his way back out. The trip from the campsite to the tree, which should have taken no more than twenty minutes, had taken over an hour. Johnny and the boys had to be long gone. They were safe.

It was time for his and Mike's little game to come to an end.

He crossed to the tree, grabbed the branches that had embedded themselves in the ground when it fell, and started climbing. He could remember lifting Sam up to it, before she'd been tall enough to get up on her own. He also remembered how quickly Robby had scaled it. It had been years since he'd tried it himself, and he couldn't help but be slightly proud of how swiftly and smoothly he did it.

Mike emerged from the trees less than a minute later. He'd obviously already seen Daniel standing above him, and he walked straight toward him with the same smug sense of confidence and arrogance he'd had an hour earlier.

Daniel held his open hands out at his sides. "Olly olly oxen free," he said.

Mike smiled as he moved closer. "You giving up, Daniel?" he asked. "I knew you were a wimp, but I'm disappointed. I thought you'd last longer than this. We were just starting to have fun, too."

Daniel shook his head slowly. "I'm not giving up," he said. "I'm just done playing." He took a deep breath. "Game's over."

Mike snorted. "Then what the hell are you doing up there?"

"Giving you a chance."

"To do what?"

"Turn around and leave."

"And why the hell would I do that?" Mike asked. "I've been waiting more than thirty years for this. You think I'd walk away now?"

"I think we'd both be better off if you did."

"I think only one of us would be, and that would be you." Mike took two more steps toward the tree, and he narrowed his eyes. "And in case you hadn't noticed, I don't give a shit how hard this is for you. I thought I made that clear."

"Yeah," Daniel said with a nod. "You did."

"Besides, you wanted to play. You could have left any time you wanted to."

Daniel snorted. "Right."

Mike shook his head. "No, you could have. I mean, yeah, I'd have tracked you down again. Wouldn't have been hard. And I'd have done the same to Blondie and those kids. But you could have left."

Daniel's shoulders stiffened.

"What?" Mike's smile was back. "You believed what I said, about this being some big evil plot? Everybody was in on it? Or maybe you still thought me showing up was an accident?" Mike shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. "Truth is, I've been watching you for months, waiting for my chance. I know where you live, where you work, and which way you drive to get there. I know all about your beautiful wife, and your beautiful daughter, and your spoiled asshole of a son. Your mother, your loser cousin. I was there when you kicked Tom Cole. I even followed you to the slope's grave, like he meant something."

Daniel swallowed hard and said nothing. What could he say?

 _'You've got yourself a stalker, LaRusso.'_

 _'No shit.'_

Mike started walking slowly, back and forth, waving his arms around as he spoke. "I could have killed you a hundred times, but none of them felt right. A car wreck? Too easy. A random shooting? Not personal enough. A mugging would have been cliché. And a robbery-gone-wrong would be boring. No, I'm glad I waited for today. You and me, one-on-one, on a mountain. We've got history, don't we? It seems fitting somehow. If I just had some rope and a cliff to throw you off of."

Daniel closed his eyes and took a deep breath as Mike's laughter echoed around him. "And, I have to admit, fucking with you this morning was fun. If you could have seen your face, Daniel. I don't know what that kid was freaking out about, but it was perfect. He had you so worked up. It was great."

At least he finally knew that what he'd felt on the trail and by the lake had been real. He turned his thoughts and his focus inward, and though he heard Mike's words, he didn't let them affect him again.

"And it was so easy to get you out here. An invisible gun, a couple of empty threats, and you're willing to do anything I say. Anything to protect them, right?" Mike said. "Just like that pretty redheaded girl. Make you think someone else is in danger, and you'll do every single thing you're told. It's predictable. You're predictable. It was almost too easy."

Invisible gun. Empty threats. Johnny and the boys had never been in any real danger.

 _'Except for that branch upside the head thing.'_

 _'Yeah. There is that.'_

Mike had known from the very beginning how Daniel was going to react. He'd have felt like a fool if he let himself think about how easily he'd been led around by the nose. As it was, he simply took comfort in knowing that Johnny and the boys were safe so long as he kept playing his part.

"There was no knight; there was no bishop. They were all pawns. They just weren't yours. They were mine. And I used them to get what I wanted."

Daniel opened his eyes and lifted his head.

"It was never about them, Daniel. It was always – always – about you."

He'd used the few minutes Mike's ramblings had afforded him to start preparing himself for what was coming, but he wasn't ready yet. He zipped his sweatshirt up and pushed the sleeves to his elbows. Then, he took a deep breath and blew it out.

"Come on," Mike said impatiently. "Stop fucking around. You're the one who decided to do this. So get your ass down here and do it."

Daniel nodded slowly, turned and walked to the other end of the tree. He moved steadily but carefully past the small branches that stuck out at random, to where the incline sloped up to meet the unearthed roots. He bent down, put his right hand on the trunk, and jumped off. He turned in the air, and he was facing Mike when he landed.

"You're sure this is what you want?" he asked. "You can still walk away."

Mike laughed again. "I already told you. I'm not going anywhere."

Daniel straightened and pushed his shoulders up. He kept his voice calm and even when he spoke. "I don't think this is going to end the way you want it to."

Mike actually threw his head back that time. "Right. Because I didn't kick the living shit out of you the last time we stood across from each other."

Daniel shook his head. "No, you did," he admitted. "But I still won, didn't I?"

Mike's jaw tensed and his eyes narrowed. "And I haven't lost since."

Daniel reached up and ran his hand almost reverently across the tree as he walked alongside it. "Don't make me do this, Mike."

Mike's answer was to widen his feet and raise his hands. "I'm not making you do anything. You can leave if you want. Just know that I'll follow you, and I'll find you. And everyone you've ever cared about."

The threat was still there, and it wasn't empty. Mike was a danger to everyone he knew. Everyone he loved. He had to stop him.

"I'm not a scared little kid anymore. And this is no tournament. I don't want to do this, but I will."

"Oh, come on," Mike said. "What do you think you are? Some kind of Zen master badass?" Mike pulled his right fist back. "I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Your teacher was nothing, you're nothing, and your karate is shit. I own you, LaRusso. I own you!"

He didn't want to do it. He wanted to believe he could talk to Mike like a reasonable person. But one look at his eyes, at the hatred and madness shining in them, convinced him there was no other way. They'd gone past any point of no return they'd had, and there were only two ways for it to end. If that was how it had to be, then he had to see it all the way through.

It wasn't just his life on the line if he messed up. He could have dealt with it if it was just him. But it was Robby. And Johnny. And Miguel. Amanda, Sam and Anthony. Everyone. He couldn't second-guess himself. If he was willing to start it, he had to be ready to finish it.

He took a deep breath as he assumed his own stance less than two feet away.

"Do you know the biggest difference between me and my sensei?" he asked.

Mike laughed again. "You're a live Wop, and he's a dead Jap?"

Daniel shook his head slowly. What he was about to do went against everything Mr. Miyagi had ever taught him. It went against everything he was teaching Robby. It went against everything he believed in. But he didn't care. He couldn't care. The fight had quite literally come to him.

He didn't want to do it. But he had no choice.

 _'It's alright, LaRusso. It's okay.'_

"He was a hero," he said. "And I'm no goddamned pacifist."

Finally willing to admit it was sometimes necessary, and for once thankful he'd had Johnny Lawrence to show him how, Daniel LaRusso struck first.

* * *

Johnny had no idea where he was going. All he knew was LaRusso had been headed up the mountain when he left. He was hoping that if he went the same direction, he'd find him. Eventually. Somehow. He was running faster than he probably should have been with a concussion, and he wasn't paying any attention to the scenery around him. LaRusso had better be able to get them back down, because there was no way Johnny was going to know which way to go.

He'd been running longer than he'd thought he was going to have to, too. He was starting to worry that he was never going to find LaRusso, and all he was going to manage to do was get himself lost. Wouldn't that be great?

 _'You're too negative. You'll find him. Stay focused.'_

 _'What the hell?'_

Okay, so ... he had a voice in his head that sounded a whole hell of a lot like Daniel LaRusso. That wasn't weird at all. He was sure it was perfectly normal.

It had to be the concussion.

He heard the sounds of a fight ahead of him, off in the distance. He was too far away to see anything, but he'd heard it enough times in his life that he knew exactly what it was. He followed the noise right to them, crouching low to the ground as he approached.

 _'Told you you'd find him.'_

 _'You can shut up now.'_

He'd have to watch them for at least a few seconds before deciding if he should get involved. If LaRusso was focused and doing well, it was possible that interfering would do more harm than good. Depending on just how well he was doing, Johnny might not be needed at all. He'd never seen that Mike guy, but he was very well acquainted with LaRusso's fighting style. And he knew from experience that he could take care of himself.

He stood to the side of a large tree, using it and the smaller saplings growing around it as cover. He moved around it slowly, silently, until he could see them clearly. He was about twenty feet behind and just slightly downhill from them. The massive tree that had fallen across the clearing was an impressive backdrop for the fight taking place in front of it.

Neither of them knew he was there. They'd have had to turn away from each other to know that, and neither one looked to be letting their focus stray any time soon. They weren't talking to each other; there was no taunting, no arguing, no anything. Their kiais were the only sounds either of them made.

It had been a lot of years since Johnny had seen a battle that intense. It wasn't for points or trophies. It wasn't about some random act of violence in the middle of nowhere. There was something going on between those two. It went beyond the fear Robby had seen, beyond the anger and hatred Johnny knew had to exist. It was something deeper than all of that, something he didn't understand.

 _'This Mike guy is no one he's ever called friend.'_

 _'Yeah, no shit.'_

He'd been right in thinking that interfering would be a mistake. LaRusso was laser-focused on his opponent, and distracting him would be dangerous. Besides, he was handling himself just fine. More than fine. He was kicking Mike's ass.

He was doing a lot of that patience/no aggression thing he did, the one he'd passed on to Robby. He was making the guy come to him and using his defense to repel the attacks. But he was using more offense than Johnny had seen him use before. When Mike would back off to regroup, LaRusso would follow him. He'd keep after him, land several hits of his own, and then he'd step back. Mike would go at him again, and he'd get the same result. Over and over. And it was working. Mike was wearing himself out, and LaRusso's kicks and punches were landing more often and with more force.

Johnny still had no idea who the hell Mike was, but it was obvious he knew his stuff.

He was fast, for starters. Aggressive, calculating, and explosive. It wasn't doing him any favors with LaRusso using it against him, but Johnny was almost impressed by his skill. His powerful and violent moves were a contrast to LaRusso's smoother, more-controlled style. It was evident that Mike had also been Cobra Kai at some point. He moved almost as much like Kreese as Johnny himself did. He'd landed more than a few hits of his own, too. LaRusso's face bore the evidence of that. Watching them reminded him, of all things, of Luke Skywalker battling Darth Vader. For just a second, he wondered if that's what he and LaRusso had looked like from the stands all those years ago, too.

LaRusso blocked another barrage of punches and kicks. But that time, he didn't try to land any of his own. Mike backed off to catch his breath. Instead of pursuing, as he'd been doing, LaRusso backed off, too. And then, he stopped. He just stopped. He stood there, his shoulders heaving with every breath, and for the first time, Johnny could see how tired he was.

He had a feeling things were about to take a drastic turn.

 _'I gotta get in there.'_

 _'Wait. Not yet.'_

LaRusso took a deep breath, pushed his shoulders back, and dropped both arms to his sides. He pulled his fists back to his hips. His jaw was set, his face was hard, and his eyes were narrow, but his defense was down. He'd left himself wide open.

 _'What the hell is he doing?'_

 _'Stay out of his way. Watch.'_

"No!" Mike shouted. "You will not do that shit to me again!"

He charged. Maybe he saw his chance to turn the tide. Maybe he was just incredibly pissed that LaRusso had dropped his guard. Either way, it didn't matter. Mike was about to hit LaRusso with everything he had. Johnny ignored the voice in his head and stepped forward.

 _'Don't distract him!'_

Just before Mike's punch landed, LaRusso spun from the waist. He used his right arm to knock Mike's fist aside. The momentum brought his left hand up. It slammed into the side of Mike's face with so much force that it knocked his head sideways. Mike swung again, that time with his left hand. LaRusso repeated the move with his left arm and right hand.

For some reason, the guy kept trying. But the harder he swung, the harder LaRusso's hand landed. He was literally using Mike's own power to beat the shit out of him.

 _'What is that?'_

 _'That's impressive. Isn't it?'_

 _'Yeah. Yeah, it … it really is.'_

That wasn't tournament karate. That was nothing Johnny had ever seen before. That was the real stuff. LaRusso wasn't sparring or matching. He was fighting. Like his life depended on it. Like he knew exactly what he was doing. Like he'd done it before.

 _'And I thought he needed my help?'_

 _'It's not over yet.'_

Mike finally pulled himself away, backed up, and fell to his knees. LaRusso reached down, grabbed the collar of his jacket, and pulled his fist back.

"This ends now," he said breathlessly. "No more!"

"Do it!" Mike spat a mouthful of blood at him. "Come on, Daniel! Show me what a great man you are!'

Johnny could almost see the muscles in LaRusso's jaw twitching. He opened his hand and raised his arm ... and he'd seen that before. One man on his knees, the other standing over him, preparing to strike. Both times he'd been witness to it, it was being done to protect him. Mr. Miyagi hadn't finished it in the parking lot. LaRusso sure as hell looked like he was going to finish it on the mountain.

 _'No. Daniel … no …'_

 _'Trust him.'_

Suddenly, LaRusso's whole face changed. He closed his eyes and tipped his head to the side, like he was listening to something. Something only he could hear. The anger on his face fell away, and it was replaced with an expression of shock and disbelief.

"No."

He looked almost as surprised he'd said it as Johnny was he'd heard it. "I won't." He shook his head, dropped his hand, and let go of Mike's collar. "I won't do it," he said, backing up slowly. "I'm done, Mike. It's over."

Then, he turned his back and started to walk away.

Johnny smiled softly and nodded.

 _'Nice.'_

Mike exploded from the ground with a roar, fists swinging wildly. LaRusso spun to face him. He had to step back, but he blocked every punch. His hands and arms were moving faster than they should be able to. Mike landed a lucky kick against his shoulder that knocked him off balance. He followed with a double-fisted backhand that snapped LaRusso's head back.

Johnny heard it connect from where he was standing.

 _'Now?'_

 _'He's still okay.'_

LaRusso stepped to the side to give himself a few more seconds to recover. He got his hands back up and his feet back under him. Mike aimed another kick at his right hip. LaRusso shifted his weight, moved his left leg forward and his right leg back. At the last second, Mike dropped his leg and twisted his hips. He slammed the back of his heel against the inside of LaRusso's left knee.

It bent sideways.

Johnny's heart dropped.

Daniel screamed.

 _'Shit!'_

 _'Now! He needs you! Go!'_

Johnny bolted forward.

Mike followed through. His right foot hit the ground, and he lunged with his left. He crossed his wrists and pinned Daniel's left arm between them. That kept him from going down. All of Daniel's weight shifted to his right leg. Mike turned his left hand, wrapped it around Daniel's wrist, and pushed up. His right hand dropped to his side. Mike kept turning, pivoting to his left. He pushed Daniel's arm over his head, pulled him up and in. His right hand shot forward. It looked like a modified reverse punch, but it was too low. It was too far to the outside. And fists didn't reflect sunlight.

"No!"

Daniel turned his head at the sound of Johnny's voice. He lost focus for less than a second, but it was enough. It was more than enough. His eyes widened, and he gasped. He fell forward against Mike's shoulder.

Johnny skidded to a halt and froze.

"I told you," he heard Mike say. "I. Don't. Lose."

The bastard put his hand against Daniel's chest and shoved him away. He cried out, clutched his left side, and crumpled to the ground.

The bloodied knife was still in Mike's hand when he spun to face Johnny.

 _'Fuck!'_

 _'Move!'_

Johnny was running again. He jumped a small fallen tree and raised his hands as he moved in. He'd waited too long. He was too late. He'd just fucking stood there. He'd just fucking watched.

 _'I didn't stop it!"_

 _'Calm down. Breathe. Focus. This is your fight now.'_

His first move was a spinning back kick that knocked the knife flying. No way in hell was he letting the douchebag stick him, too. With that out of the way, he attacked.

It wasn't as hard as he'd expected. He was still shaking off that branch to the head. But Mike had just spent the last who-knew-how-long fighting. The asshole was winded. It had taken almost everything he had just to hold his own against Daniel. He'd been seconds away from submission barely a minute before. And his last attack had taken what little had remained.

Johnny paid enough attention to Daniel's position to avoid stepping on him. He struck with everything he had left and then some. His first thought, his only thought, was that he had to drive Mike back. He didn't have time to decide how he wanted it to end. He didn't know if he wanted Mike gone or injured or out cold or what. But he sure as hell wasn't letting him win.

He wasn't letting him near Daniel again, either.

Rustling leaves behind him told him Daniel was pushing himself out of the way. Johnny smiled. He was with it enough to realize he needed to move. And he _could_ move. That was good. Johnny could give his full focus to the panting, bruised, and bleeding asshole in front of him.

Another kick, that time to the side of the dickwad's head. Mike stumbled and fell as Johnny planted his feet. He brought his hands up again and widened his stance. He'd put himself between the motherfucker and Daniel. He took one step forward.

"Come on!" he challenged. "Let's go!"

The piece of shit pushed himself to his feet and smiled.

"Nah, I'm good," Mike said. He wiped at the blood pouring from his nose. "Thanks for the assist."

"What?" Johnny narrowed his eyes. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Mike tipped his head to the side, winked, and took off into the woods without another word.

Johnny watched him go, debating with himself whether or not he should follow. But wasn't that how Daniel had gotten himself into such a mess in the first place? Chasing fuckwads, especially armed fuckwads, through the woods on a mountain wasn't safe. It was a bad idea. It was stupid. Even still, he was on his toes, ready to run, ready to keep the fight going.

A groan and more rustling behind him pulled his attention to more immediate concerns, and he turned around.

"Shit. LaRusso."

He was half-lying/half-sitting, curled forward around his left side and propped up on his elbow, near one of the branches that had gotten buried in the ground when the tree had fallen. His right eye was red and swollen. So was his left jaw. Blood was running down his face from his nose, the corner of his mouth, his busted-open left eyebrow, and a cut on his already-bruising right cheek. His right hand was pressed against his left side, and his left arm was tight against his ribs. He was still trying to push himself away, his eyes focused on nothing, his face a mask of pain and confusion. He was dragging his left leg, which was bent at an odd angle and looked really wrong, even from five feet away and through his jeans.

Johnny swallowed hard, breathing heavily and starting to feel his own aches and pains as he walked forward slowly.

"LaRusso," he said again. "Hey. You okay?"

Well, that was a dumb question. But it got an even dumber answer.

"Fine," he gasped out. "I'm fine. I'm fine."

His shoulders bumped into the tangle of sticks, dirt, roots and leaves behind him, and he collapsed against them. His eyes rolled back in his head as they slid closed.

 _'Fuck …'_

 _'Fuck!'_


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

As he looked down at Daniel's beaten, bloody body and his bent-wrong knee, Johnny came to a realization.

He was useless.

He'd gone after Daniel so he wouldn't have to deal with Mike alone. He'd done it to keep Daniel from sacrificing himself to protect the three of them. He'd done it because he'd promised Robby he'd bring him back safe. He'd done it to stop that damned nightmare from coming true. He'd had every intention of doing all those things. He hadn't done any of them.

Because he'd let a stupid voice in his head talk him out of stepping up and stepping in, and he'd just stood there and watched. He hadn't prevented anything. He'd taken too long to get involved, and when he did ... well, if Mike's thanks for the "assist" were even a little sincere, that meant he'd made things worse by distracting Daniel at the worst possible second. The fight was over. The physical threat was defeated and had run away. But the damage had already been done.

Johnny had to push his massive failure aside and figure out what to do next. He was the only one left standing.

Quite literally.

When it came to first aid, he knew nothing. He'd never done it in his life; he'd never even tried. Something about breathing and bleeding and not moving people who were hurt and … it wasn't going to work. He had no idea what he should do.

Daniel was breathing, which was very good. The blood soaking through his sweatshirt said he was bleeding, which was very bad. He could move by himself, at least a little bit, so that was a little bit of good, but he probably shouldn't, and if he did, that would probably be bad. And all that was without even thinking about whatever the hell had happened to his leg, which couldn't be anything other than bad.

It all added up to a whole lot of bad and not nearly enough good. And he didn't know what to do about any of it.

"LaRusso!" He fell to his knees at Daniel's side and put one hand on his shoulder,. The shudders and gasps vibrated up his own arm. For the first time since he'd woken up from his little branch-induced nap, he was almost willing to admit he might be starting to get a bit scared. "Hey!"

 _'Don't talk so loud. Do you want Mike to come back?'_

 _'I've taken enough advice from you today.'_

It wasn't like the asshole didn't know exactly where they were, anyway. If Mike came back, he'd find them no matter how quietly he talked. "Open your eyes, LaRusso," he said, fighting – and failing – to keep the rising panic out of his voice. "Look at me!"

 _'You need to calm down.'_

 _'That bastard stabbed him!'_

Daniel didn't do as he was told, and the shaking was getting worse. Holding on to the last shreds of his rapidly-shrinking hope that the silence and tremors were only signs of one hell of an adrenaline let-down starting, he tried again. "Hey, LaRusso." Every time he didn't get the response he was hoping for, his own heartbeat sped up. He grabbed both of Daniel's shoulders and shook him. "Come on, man. Don't do this!"

 _'Freaking out about it won't help him.'_

 _'Why won't he open his damn eyes?!'_

He took Daniel's chin in his hand and turned his head toward him. "LaRusso!"

 _'Calm. Down. Now.'_

 _'Shut. The hell. Up!'_

Daniel finally opened his eyes, and he blinked up at Johnny slowly.

Then, he jerked his head away from Johnny's hand, shoved himself backwards and tried to get to his feet.

"No!" Johnny yelled. "Don't get up! You're …!"

As soon as Daniel tried to put weight on his left leg, his body told him – forcefully – that it wasn't happening. With a choked cry of pain, all the blood drained from his face, and he was on his way back down. Johnny had just enough time to catch him before he slammed his head into the branch. But Daniel's fight-or-flight response was still in high gear, and he'd obviously chosen some combination of the two. He pushed himself back further, using only his right leg. Then, he started swinging.

"Stop!" Johnny ducked the punches easily, but as he did, he noticed the dark red stain on Daniel's sweatshirt was starting to spread. "LaRusso, listen to me!" He grabbed Daniel's wrists and pushed them down, pinning his arms to his sides and forcing him to stay still. "It's over. He's gone."

"Get off me!" Daniel kept fighting, trying to pull out of Johnny's grasp, becoming both weaker and more frantic as he did.

"You gotta stop. Do you hear me? You're ..."

"Back the fuck off, Mike!"

Johnny jerked as if Daniel had slapped him, and he barely managed to keep hold of him. Was there really not a big enough difference in Daniel's mind between Johnny and the motherfucker who'd stabbed him for him to tell them apart? Patching him up on the outside might be doable – if he could get him to sit still for five minutes, that was – but how the hell did he fix that?

"I'm not Mike," he said softly.

 _'He doesn't know me.'_

 _'He doesn't_ _ **see you**_ _.'_

Johnny spoke again, much more forcefully than before. "LaRusso! Hey! Look at me!" Daniel's struggles were sluggish and unsteady, but he didn't stop trying to pull away. "Quit it."

"I won't let you hurt them. I won't!"

 _'He's not listening to me.'_

 _'He doesn't_ _ **hear you**_ _.'_

"Look at me, LaRusso. Now!" He was shouting right in Daniel's face, but it still didn't seem to be working. "Daniel!"

Daniel's eyes widened, and he went completely still. He blinked again, and just like that, all the fight drained out of him. "John … Johnny?" he breathed out. His voice was raspy, uncertain, and breathless despite how heavily he was breathing. He sounded confused, disoriented. Lost. "What …?"

"Yeah," Johnny said. He was grateful that he'd finally broken through, but he was worried about how much more damage Daniel had done to himself. "It's just me." He released his grip on Daniel's wrists and sat back on his heels. "You with me?"

"Yeah," Daniel said, nodding slowly. His right hand moved up from the ground to rest against his injured side, but he didn't look at it. The movement seemed more instinctive than intentional. "Yeah, I'm … What?"

"Okay," Johnny said, drawing the word out. "Do you know where you are?"

Daniel's brain didn't seem to have caught up yet. His body knew it was hurt, but did the rest of him? Did he even realize what had happened to him? Johnny glanced down at Daniel's side, at the blood starting to run between his fingers.

He'd watched that damn knife slide into Daniel's gut. He'd watched his knee bend sideways. He'd heard him scream and watched him fall. A large part of him still didn't believe it was real.

Daniel closed his eyes briefly, but they shot back open almost immediately. The expression on his face changed as rapidly as it had before, but that time, it went from bewilderment to alarm.

"Where's Mike?"

No, Daniel didn't know he was injured. And he'd decided to stand up again. Johnny didn't move fast enough to stop him that time, either, but it didn't matter. The second attempt ended the same way the first had, right down to Johnny catching him when his knee refused to work.

"Easy," he said. He put his other hand on Daniel's chest, felt the hammering of his heart through skin and clothes, and lowered him to the ground much more gently than he'd have landed on his own. "Take it easy." He held Daniel steady until he was laying mostly flat, with his head and shoulders resting on the leaves. Then he pulled his arm out from behind him and reached for the zipper of the blue sweatshirt. "You need to stay still."

"Where is he?" Daniel asked. He batted Johnny's hands away and looked around as though the last few minutes hadn't happened. He didn't sound hurt or scared like Johnny expected him to, though. He sounded pissed. "Where'd he go?" He pushed himself back against the branch until he was sitting up. "I have to find him. You've gotta go," he muttered. Despite how badly his last two attempts had ended, he was trying to get up again. "You shouldn't be here. Robby … Miguel … "

"Hey!" Johnny put his hand back on Daniel's chest and held him down easily. "Will you _stop_ that?"

"Johnny …"

"Look, man, I agree. I don't want that bastard anywhere near the boys. But you ..."

"Don't worry about me. I'm fine." Johnny shook his head, but Daniel didn't seem to notice. "You don't know this guy, Johnny. The boys aren't safe. He'll go after them. He said …" He bent his right leg, put his foot flat on the ground, and lifted his head and shoulders. "I have to …"

"Stop!" Johnny pushed him back down for a third time. "Jesus, you're gonna kill yourself. Stop."

"You're not even supposed to be here. You're supposed to be on your way to the hospital. I told them ... they were supposed to ... Johnny, you've got to take them and get off the mountain!"

"They're already going," he answered. "I sent them to the car before I came after you. They'll be fine."

Daniel shook his head quickly. "But that doesn't get you ... You're not ... Damn it, listen to me …"

"No, you listen. We can worry about the boys in a few minutes. We need to worry about you first."

"What?" Daniel asked, shaking his head. "You're the one who's hurt. I'm fine." Why did he keep saying that when he so obviously wasn't? "You've got a concussion. You need a doctor. You need to go."

" _I_ need a doctor?" His eyes widened, and he shook his head in disbelief. Where was Daniel getting this stuff? "Whatever, man. But I'm not going anywhere without you, and you're not going anywhere, so …"

"I said I'm fine!" Daniel insisted through clenched teeth. "I just need to …"

"Need to what?" Johnny demanded. "Lose a few more pints of blood than you already have?"

"What?"

"You do know he stabbed you, right?" The blank look on Daniel's face answered that question better than words could have. Johnny tipped his head toward the growing patch of red on Daniel's sweatshirt and the as-yet-unseen stab wound he knew was hidden under it.

Daniel looked down, and his eyes widened. "Oh." He lifted his hand slowly, staring in numbed fascination at the dark red liquid that coated his fingers. "Okay. That's blood." He looked and sounded painfully confused. "Is that … that's mine?" People went into shock when they were stabbed, right? That had to be what was going on. He was in shock. And shock was more bad to add to the ever-growing list. "I thought he punched me."

"Yeah, well, he did. He just had a knife in his hand when he did it."

"That's a lot … lot of blood." Daniel pressed his hand back to it, grimacing as he did. A sudden shudder ran through him, and he sucked in a breath. "Okay. That, um ... that hurts." The adrenaline was finally wearing off. It wouldn't be much longer before he started feeling everything. "Shit, that really hurts."

 _'You need to hurry.'_

"Yeah," Johnny agreed quickly. "I bet it does. So just lay there, and let me see it." Johnny reached for the zipper again, but Daniel pulled away.

"Why?"

"Well," Johnny said slowly. "Do you wanna bleed to death?" Daniel shook his head. "Then I need to look at it." He reached for the sweatshirt once more. "I need to see how bad it is, and figure out how to ..."

Daniel flinched. "No, wait."

Johnny pulled his hands back and huffed in exasperation. "What?!"

"The boys." Daniel rolled slightly to his side and reached into the pocket of his jeans. The effort cost him. He paled again, and his head fell to the side, but he didn't stop. Not even when the blood that hand had been holding back started to drip into the dirt.

 _On the ground._

"What the hell are you doing?"

Daniel eased himself back, breathing heavily, pulled something out of his pocket and held it out to him. "Call them," he said. "We have to ... make sure they're gone."

Johnny looked down at the phone Daniel had just given him, at the cracked glass and the smeared streaks of blood he'd left on both the screen and Johnny's hand as his fingers fell away.

 _On his hands._

"I really think we should focus on ..."

"Boys first," Daniel insisted. "Then you. Then me."

 _'Stubborn, hot-headed, pig-headed, stupid, self-sacrificing, idiotic, son of a …'_

"Alright," Johnny agreed reluctantly, nodding his head. "Okay." Daniel wasn't going to let him do anything for him until he knew the boys were safe, and there was no point in wasting time arguing about it. He wiped the phone on the leg of his jeans, trying his best to ignore the large red streak it left on them.

 _On his clothes._

He shook his head to chase the lingering images away. In the nightmare, he'd seen the blood but not known where it was coming from. In reality, he did. He hadn't decided yet if that made things better or worse. What he did know was the faster he made that phone call, the sooner he could do something about it. "How does this thing work?" he asked.

Daniel lifted his hand once more, pressed his thumb against the bottom of the screen, and then tapped the icon for the phone. He leaned back and closed his eyes, and Johnny looked at the list of names that had popped up. Robby's was near the top, just under Amanda, Sam and Anthony.

Johnny pushed the twinge of jealousy aside. Maybe one day, they'd have a conversation about how important Daniel and Robby were to each other, but at that moment, neither of them had time for it. He pressed Robby's name, and when the phone started dialing, he pushed the button to put it on speaker. He looked down at Daniel as he did.

Robby answered on the first ring. _"Mr. LaRusso! Where are you? Are you …?"_

"Robby," Johnny said. "It's me."

 _"Dad!"_ He heard Miguel in the background, yelling, _"Sensei!"_ There were a few scuffling sounds, a couple of muttered curses, and then both boys were talking at once, their voices mixing together and fighting to be heard as they shouted questions at him.

 _"Did you find him? Where are you? Is he okay? Are you alright? Dad? Sensei? Do you need us ...? Do you want us ...?"_

"Quiet!" Johnny shouted. Daniel almost smiled as he opened his eyes, and Johnny shook his head in frustration. "One at a time."

 _"Did you find him?"_ It was only Robby asking that time. _"Is he okay? Is he hurt?"_

Johnny glanced at Daniel, who was shaking his head. "Don't," he mouthed silently. "Do not tell him."

"I found him," he answered. "Calling from his phone, right? Listen …"

 _"Is he hurt?"_ Of course, Robby would notice that he'd only answered one of his questions.

"Listen to ..."

 _"Dad, is he hurt? Is he okay?"_

"Robby, listen to me!" Johnny commanded. "I've got him, okay?" It would have been a much easier conversation if he lied, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He'd just have to be very careful about what truth he did tell. The look on Daniel's face said there was a damn good reason for not telling Robby he was hurt, and Johnny would follow his lead. At least for the time being.

"I'll get him to my car. We'll be fine. Where are you? Are you gone yet?"

 _"Dad …"_

"Did you leave?!"

 _"Not yet,"_ Miguel answered. _"We just got to the cars."_

"Okay." It shouldn't have taken them that long to get there. They had to be stalling. They either weren't taking the situation seriously, or they were just straight-up disobeying him. "This is not a game, boys. You have gotta go. This guy, Mike, he …" He looked down at Daniel again. He wanted to tell them everything. He wanted to tell them why they had to leave, what had happened and what would happen if they didn't, but he couldn't. He settled for a seriously understated version of the truth. "He's dangerous."

 _"Sensei, what ...?"_

 _"Dad?"_

"We can deal with him. But take my word for it, the two of you can't handle him alone. We'll be right behind you. But you have to go."

The scuffling sounds came through the speaker again, and Johnny looked down in confusion. It sounded like the boys were fighting over the phone. He heard their raised voices, but he couldn't understand the words. A few seconds later, Robby's voice came through the phone once more.

 _"Dad, let me talk to him."_

Daniel was shaking his head slowly, more rolling it back and forth than anything. Johnny tilted his head at him in question.

"He won't go," he whispered. "Robby won't leave."

Johnny put his hand across the microphone. "Why not?" he asked just as quietly.

 _"Dad? No, Miguel, shut up. Let me ... Dad!"_

"He knows." Daniel let his eyes fall closed again. "He's been scared of ... he's known this was coming since … he woke up this morning."

"How?"

 _"Back the fuck off, Miguel! I need to talk to Mr. LaRusso!"_

"Nightmare. He had a ... a nightmare."

Johnny started in surprise. Robby had a nightmare about Daniel getting hurt. Well, that made two of them, didn't it? And as much as it was messing with his head to watch it come true, what would it do to a sixteen-year-old kid? He filed that away with everything else he was planning on not dealing with later. "What do we do?"

 _"Dad, please!"_

Daniel gestured for the phone, and Johnny held it down to him. Daniel shifted slightly on the ground, biting his lip to hold back whatever sound it was he wanted to make. Then he pressed his hand back to his side and took a deep breath.

"Robby."

Johnny was impressed. Daniel's voice sounded almost normal.

 _"Mr. LaRusso! Thank God! Are you okay? Are you ...?"_

"I'm fine." Luckily, Daniel didn't have the same issue with lying to Robby that Johnny had. It didn't sound as convincing as it had when he'd believed it himself, but it was a pretty impressive performance for a guy who was bleeding all over himself. "I'm right here, kiddo. I'm fine."

 _"Mr. LaRusso."_

"You need to listen ... to your dad. Do what … what he says." Daniel swallowed hard. He shuddered again, then winced in pain, but he somehow managed to keep most of it out of his voice. "I want – _need_ – you … to go. Okay?"

 _"No, Mr. LaRusso. I can't. I ..."_

"Robby. Go."

* * *

 _"Robby. Go."_

The phone beeped twice, and then it was silent.

"No," Robby whispered, shaking his head.

Miguel reached for the phone in Robby's hand. There was no resistance when he took it. "Sensei. Sensei!" There was no response. "It dropped," he said, looking down at the screen. "We've got three bars. They must be ..."

"No." Robby had thrown his sling to the ground and was running back up the trail before Miguel even realized he'd moved.

"Damn it," he muttered, shoving the phone into his jacket as he ran after him. "Robby, stop!"

Robby didn't stop, and he didn't answer him. He stumbled over a small pile of sticks and leaves, and that slowed him down enough to give Miguel the few seconds he needed to catch him. He wrapped his arms around Robby's waist and started pulling him back toward the car.

"No!" Robby was swinging his arms wildly, but he didn't connect with anything. He tried to plant his feet on the ground, but they kept slipping. His movements were uncoordinated, desperate but lacking in direction. That didn't make any sense. Robby knew how to get out of a hold like that, but he'd somehow lost the ability to use everything he'd learned from LaRusso. He wasn't fighting from a place of knowledge and experience.

He was fighting from fear.

"Let me go!" he screamed. "He's hurt. He's gonna ... Let go of me!"

Miguel didn't let go. "Stop!" He'd moved them to the side of LaRusso's car, and with one last surge of strength, he turned and slammed Robby's back into the driver's door. "Robby, stop! Listen to me!"

"No," Robby said again, but he wasn't shouting anymore. He was shaking, and Miguel was surprised by the tears that were running down his face. "He said ... he told me to go. Just like that. But he was hurt, and he was bleeding, and then ... he's dying, Miguel. I know he is. And I can't ..."

"What are you talking about?" Miguel demanded. "He's not dying." He leaned down slightly and forced Robby to look at him. The fear in his eyes was real, and Miguel couldn't deny it, even though he had no idea what was causing it. "No one's dying. You just talked to him. You heard them. He's fine. Knock it off." Robby pushed himself away from the car, but Miguel grabbed his upper arms and shoved him into it again. "Stop!"

"They lied," Robby argued. "They did. He's hurt. I have to ..."

"Okay." Miguel kept his hands on Robby's shoulders, pinning him to the car, and he knew he was only able to hold him there because Robby was too scared to think straight. "Okay! I believe you, okay? I don't know why I do, but I do. But if that's true, if he's hurt, then the last thing we should do is go running up after them. That's not gonna help anything. What we need to do is go back to the city. Now."

Robby shook his head. "What? No! No, we can't. We have to help them!"

"We _can't_ help them!" Miguel insisted. "Not alone. Sensei just said that. Do you hear me? _We_ can't help them."

Robby turned his eyes toward him, and for the first time since the phone had gone dead, Miguel knew he actually saw him. "What are we supposed to do?" Robby asked. "We can't leave them here."

Miguel nodded. "I don't want to, but we can't do this alone. We have to get help."

"What?"

"Your dad …" Miguel sighed. It was getting easier to say those two words, but they still bothered him. He just didn't have time to worry about why or how much. "I know how he'd want us to handle this. It's just like he told us. Life isn't fair. Life kicks your ass when you aren't expecting it to. That's why he taught us how to fight back when it does."

Robby tilted his head slightly, and Miguel allowed himself a small smile. He pulled his hands away from Robby's arms, confident that he wasn't going to try and run off again. "Sensei is with Mr. LaRusso, right? So whatever's going on up there, he's safe for now. He'll take care of him until we get back. And we will come back."

"Miguel, please …"

"We can't help them alone," he repeated. "But when we come back, Robby, we won't be alone."

"What are you …?"

"We can't strike first," Miguel said. "Not anymore. But we can sure as hell strike hard."

Robby actually grinned at that, and Miguel nodded at him. Robby glanced up the mountain, and then looked down at the ground. "You're right," he said. "Dad's right." He lifted his head and looked Miguel in the eye. "If Mr. LaRusso's hurt, then we make the guy who hurt him regret it."

Miguel pulled the keys out of his pocket and held them out. "You're with me on this?" He had never doubted what they needed to do. He just needed to hear Robby say he understood.

"I'm with you," Robby said. He took the keys from Miguel's hand, closing his fist around them. "No mercy."

* * *

The call dropped before the pained hiss escaped, and Johnny was grateful that Robby didn't hear it. Daniel was rapidly losing the small semblance of control he'd been holding on to. His breathing was speeding up, and he was shuddering with every inhale.

Johnny took one last look at the blank, broken screen of the phone before he put it in his own pocket. He'd wanted to tell the boys to send help. He'd wanted to tell them to get the police, or get an ambulance, something, anything ... but he hadn't figured out how to do that without telling them why, and he hadn't gotten the chance, anyway. He'd just have to hope that when they started back down the mountain, they'd find a spot where he could make that call himself.

Daniel closed his eyes and bit his lip, but he couldn't stop the whimper when he pressed his hand back to his side. Whatever had been hiding that pain from him – adrenaline or shock or stubborn refusal to let himself feel it – it wasn't working anymore. Johnny put his thoughts about what would need to happen in the future away and focused on what was happening right in front of him.

"Okay," he said, pushing himself to his feet. "That's enough. Time to stop fucking around." He stepped over Daniel's legs and knelt down at his left side. "I'm looking at this thing right now. And you are gonna lay there and let me."

"No," Daniel protested. "You first. Your head …"

"I have a headache," he admitted. Another understatement, but he had a feeling keeping the full truth from Daniel was more important than keeping it from the boys had been. "I'll live."

"But …"

"No buts. Shut up, and stop stalling."

Daniel didn't argue anymore, but he also didn't relax, and his unwillingness to let Johnny touch him was obvious. Johnny ignored it, because like it or not, Daniel needed help, and he was the only other person there. He removed Daniel's hand from his stomach, placed it on the ground at his side, unzipped the sweatshirt and let it fall open. Daniel pressed his hands against the ground and pushed himself a few inches further up the branch.

"Hold still, damn it."

Daniel balled his hands into fists, and his arms tensed up so much that they started shaking. Johnny felt the trembling against his leg, and he looked up with what he hoped was a reassuring expression. Then he turned away, pulled Daniel's shirt loose from his jeans, and lifted it up.

He'd never seen a stab wound before, so he wasn't sure how it compared to any others, but it wasn't as bad as he'd been afraid it would be. The knife had gone into the meat of Daniel's side, about an inch above his waist and two inches in. The hole looked to be an inch and a half wide or so, but it wasn't even. The right side was clean and straight, but the left was jagged, and the skin was more ripped than cut. It wasn't gaping open, which he figured was good, and the blood wasn't gushing or spurting, but there was still a lot of it, and it was coming out pretty quickly. The way Daniel kept moving around couldn't be helping.

Johnny hadn't paid attention to how long the blade was before he'd kicked it away, so he had no way of knowing how deep it went. And even if he had known, he knew less about anatomy than he did first aid. Had it hit anything important? What organs were in there? Kidney, intestine, liver, lung; what was where? He had no idea, but it was probably best to keep those questions to himself. Daniel might know the answer, but he had enough to worry about.

"It's not so bad," he said with a tight, forced smile. "Just a scratch. Don't be such a girl about it."

Daniel just stared at him.

"You need to stop bleeding."

"I'll get right on that." Daniel's voice caught on the last word, and Johnny watched a wave of pain cross his face. Daniel was watching him closely, growing impossibly paler with every minute that passed, but he was alive and awake and definitely alert. Johnny was going to take those as good signs.

First step: stop the bleeding. He needed to apply pressure, and he needed to bandage it. He'd seen a first aid kit back at camp, and he was sure that had bandages in it, but they would have to get to it first. Literally all they had with them was the clothes on their backs. Using his own shirt would be the easiest, but then he'd just have his jacket. If they ran into Mike again, which he was almost certain they would, he couldn't have it sticking to his skin and restricting his movement. Plus, it was chilly on that mountain, and he didn't really want to be walking around shirtless.

Daniel's sweatshirt would be easy enough to get off and use, but blood loss made people cold, didn't it? He'd need that to keep him warm.

That left Daniel's t-shirt, but how did he get it off? The normal way would mean a whole lot of movement for someone who shouldn't be moving. He'd never been stabbed, so he had no idea what it felt like, but he could only imagine it hurt like hell. Pulling a shirt over his head would probably cause more pain than Daniel could deal with.

"We've gotta get your shirt off." Daniel's eyes narrowed with the unasked question. Johnny looked at him and shrugged in apology. "Need it for a bandage."

Daniel moved like he was going to push himself up again, but Johnny raised his hand. "I _said_ stop doing that. Stay there." He looked around quickly as a thought occurred to him. "Got an idea. Hang on a second."

He stood up and jogged to where he thought the knife had landed after he'd kicked it. It didn't take him long to find it. He picked it up, examining the length and width of the blade and wiping the blood off on his jeans as he walked back to Daniel's side. He'd been right that it was only an inch and a half wide, but the damn thing had teeth all down one side, and it was at least four inches long.

If there was anything important in that part of the human body, the knife had gone deep enough to hit it. And tear the hell out of whatever it was.

 _'Fuck.'_

 _'Fuck. Fuck!'_

There was nothing Johnny could do about the stab wound other than what he was already doing, so he dismissed the shape and size of the blade from his mind as he knelt back down. No matter how deep it was, no matter how much damage it had done that he couldn't see, the most important thing was getting it to stop bleeding.

"There's not many ways to get that shirt off," he said. "This is the easiest." He held the knife up and lifted the blade toward Daniel's shoulder.

He thought it was pretty clear what he was doing. It never occurred to him that Daniel would think he was doing anything else. Until he reached for his shirt collar, and Daniel flinched and gasped like he was going to hit him. Or maybe like he was going to stab him. Again.

Johnny closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He probably should have put more effort into keeping the blade out of Daniel's sight. The thing looked scary as hell, and, of course, seeing it would freak the hell out of the guy whose body it had been shoved into. But it was too late to stop him from seeing it, and there was nothing he could do about it. It wasn't like he could just stop doing what he was doing because Daniel flipped a bit out.

But he also couldn't ignore the panic and fear on his face.

"You really think I'm gonna cut you?" Daniel shook his head quickly, but he didn't say a word. His wide eyes said it all, anyway. "I'm gonna cut your shirt off. It'll hurt less than pulling it over your head."

Johnny pulled the shoulders of Daniel's sweatshirt down and out of his way, then he cut through the seams at the top and sides of the t-shirt as quickly and carefully as he could. Daniel was as tense as a coiled spring. His eyes were locked on the blade that hovered just above his skin, and he was obviously forcing himself to stay still. Johnny pulled the two halves of the shirt away, wadded one half into a rough square, and pressed it against the still-bleeding wound.

Daniel hissed.

"Sorry," Johnny muttered. "Gotta put pressure on it. Sorry." He pressed down on it for a minute, then he lifted Daniel's right hand from the ground and laid it back across his stomach. "Hold that," he said. Daniel held it. Johnny picked up the other half of the shirt and ripped it into strips. "We need to wrap it so it'll stay there," he said. "You're gonna have to be sitting up for that."

Daniel still didn't say anything, but he pushed his left hand against the ground once again. Johnny rolled his eyes as he closed the knife and slipped it into his back pocket. How many times did he have to tell him to stop trying to move by himself before Daniel actually stopped?

"You're a stubborn little shit, LaRusso. I'll give ya that," he said. He slid his arm around Daniel's lower back and pulled him up. "Just let me. I got ya."

Once he was upright, he did a passable job of keeping himself that way. But his muscles were so tight, he looked like he was going to snap in half.

"Come on," Johnny said. "Relax, will ya?"

He didn't understand why Daniel was fighting him so hard. He knew it had to hurt, but there was more to it than that. Daniel wasn't just in pain; he was scared. His whole body was tense, his breathing was shaky, and his eyes were closed. But most alarming, Johnny realized, was that the guy who never shut up had stopped talking.

Daniel was afraid of him, but why? When had he ever done anything to hurt ...? Oh. Well, shit.

Daniel's body was still rigid against him, and if anything, the tremors were getting worse. He turned his head toward him.

"Daniel," he said softly.

Daniel opened his eyes and looked back at him.

"Trust me. Okay? I'm not gonna hurt you."

The words felt right. It seemed like Daniel needed to hear them, and maybe he even needed to say them. But they were more intense than he was comfortable with, and he couldn't let them just hang there.

"I don't have to. You're doing a good enough job hurting yourself. Just lean against me, okay?"

Daniel nodded, and slowly but surely, he forced himself to relax against Johnny's chest. As Johnny started wrapping the makeshift dressings around him, Daniel's breathing slowed, and the tension in his muscles started to fade away. Less than a minute later, his head was resting against Johnny's shoulder, and Johnny was supporting his entire weight. Had he done that on purpose, or did he not have a choice?

"You pass out on me?" he asked.

Daniel shook his head slowly.

Johnny smiled a little to himself as the other man's hair brushed against his neck, but the whole situation was getting way too deep for him to deal with. He had to get back into comfortable territory.

"Gettin' a little familiar, don't ya think, LaRusso?" he joked half-heartedly.

"Are you … hitting on me?"

Johnny snorted, taking some comfort in the teasing. That was better. Daniel was at least trying to act normal. After the uncomfortable tension of the past few minutes, it felt good.

"Yeah, you wish, Danielle," he answered. "Since Amanda's probably gonna dump your ass as soon as she gets a look at what that bastard did to your face." He put one final knot in the second of the two strips he'd used to hold the t-shirt bandage in place. "Okay, got it."

Next step: keep him warm. Daniel's shirt was gone, his sweatshirt was hanging open, and he'd gone from shaking with tension to shivering with chills. There was no denying that the skin he felt against his neck was colder than it should have been. With Daniel still leaning against his chest, Johnny carefully slipped out of his red jacket and wrapped it around his shoulders.

"What are you doing?"

"Helping," Johnny answered as he lowered him back down. "Better?"

Daniel grinned softly. "Yeah," he said. A flush had risen to his cheeks, though whether it was from embarrassment, cold, or something else, Johnny didn't know. "Thanks."

"I'm gonna want that back. So, don't get attached to it. And try not to bleed on it."

Daniel's shoulders shook from a small laugh. "I promise not to get my blood on your clothes." Johnny looked at him in confusion, but he just shook his head. "Never mind."

Johnny zipped the sweatshirt back up, pulled the jacket tighter around Daniel's shoulders, then settled on his heels again, satisfied that he'd done some good. It wasn't enough, but for the time being, it would have to suffice. He only needed to keep Daniel from bleeding to death long enough to get back to the first aid kit at camp or for the paramedics he was going to call to show up, whichever came first.

"So," he said carefully. He had a thousand questions, but there was only one that he felt he needed the answer to before things went any further. "Who are we dealing with here? That Mike guy … who exactly is that son of a bitch?"

"That son of a bitch," Daniel answered, "is Mike Barnes."

"Mike Barnes." Johnny rolled the name around in his head. He'd heard it before. "Wait. That's the guy …?"

Daniel nodded. "… who got Cobra Kai banned."

Johnny hated Mike Barnes. The asshole had ambushed them. He'd cold-cocked him with a tree branch. He'd beaten Daniel bloody, screwed up his leg, and stabbed him. _And_ he'd gotten his dojo banned from the All Valley tournament?

"What a dick."

Daniel actually chuckled, then coughed, then winced at the pain both of those things caused. "At the very least."

There was a whole story there, Johnny knew – the story Daniel had been starting to tell him before their camping trip had taken a turn into the Twilight Zone. He both wanted and needed to know it, and he had a feeling he'd know it all before the day was out. But at that moment, there was one much more important detail to worry about.

They couldn't stay where they were. Mike knew where to find them, and any medical help Johnny might be able to call wouldn't. They had to move. They had to get off the damned mountain. But to do that, Daniel was going to have to walk.

"Okay, so, we've got the bleeding thing fixed. What about the other one?"

Daniel's gaze slid from Johnny's face to his own leg. He clenched his teeth and let his head fall back again. "Why is it always my knee?"

Daniel's leg looked awful. It was bent in a direction knees weren't supposed to bend, and the denim didn't hide the fact that something was sticking out from the side of it.

"So, what'd he do to it?" Johnny asked, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer. He'd seen it before, after all. He'd seen it in person in December 1984 and in countless nightmares since. He'd seen it less than a week earlier, standing on the side of the mat, when the past and present had collided rather spectacularly in his mind. "Is it broken?"

Daniel lifted his head. "No," he answered distractedly. "It's dislocated." He grit his teeth and tensed the muscles in his thigh, groaning as he did. Johnny watched, confused, as he did it twice more, then planted his right foot flat on top of his left ankle, pushed back, and did it again.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying …" Daniel grunted through his teeth. "To put it … back …"

"You can do that?"

Daniel didn't look up. "Most of the time." He hissed and winced and went completely white every time he tensed that leg, but he kept trying. "If I can … straighten it out ..." He was shaking, gasping for breath, digging his left hand into the ground next to his thigh, and pressing his right hand harder against his side. It didn't take a brain surgeon to figure out he was hurting himself more than he was helping. Again.

Johnny couldn't watch anymore.

"Well, stop!" he said, smacking Daniel's arm with the back of his hand. "It doesn't look like it's working, and you're gonna start bleeding again and ruin all my hard work."

"I can't." Daniel barely got the words out before he collapsed against the branch. He was pale, trembling, and panting from the exertion. "Can't move it … won't go back …"

Johnny shifted nervously on the ground, very aware of just how screwed they were. Mike Barnes was still out there somewhere. For all Johnny knew, he was hiding in the trees, watching everything they did and listening to every word they said. If he decided to attack them, they were sitting ducks. There was no way Daniel could fight, and with the way Johnny's last attempt at protecting him had ended, he was seriously beginning to doubt he'd be much use, either.

And what about the boys? Had they done what they'd been told to do? Had they actually left?

With no signal, he couldn't even call them to make sure. Part of him wanted to run down the mountain himself to check on them, but there was no way he could. He wouldn't leave Daniel behind, alone, injured and incapacitated. Especially not when he knew there was a crazy bastard out in those woods who apparently wanted nothing more than to see him dead.

Again, it smacked him in the face just how badly they had to get out of there. Both of them. Daniel needed a hospital, and the pounding in Johnny's head was getting bad enough that he was willing to admit to himself that Daniel was probably right, and he needed one, too. But, if Daniel couldn't even get his leg to move, to say nothing of hold his weight, there was no way in hell they could leave.

"Now what?" he asked.

Daniel closed his eyes again and sighed deeply as he leaned his head back.

"You're gonna have to do it."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

"I'm gonna have to do what?"

Daniel didn't mean what Johnny thought he meant, did he? He couldn't.

"Fix my knee."

Yeah, that's what he'd thought he meant.

"Nope," he answered quickly. "No way, man."

"You don't have a choice," Daniel said. "We don't have a choice."

"No, I do have a choice. And I choose not to go yanking around on your leg when it looks like _that_." He gestured toward the swollen, misshapen joint with his right hand, then wiped the back of it across his mouth. He hadn't even seen it yet, but the way it looked through the jeans … God, it was going to be gross.

"Johnny."

"No."

"Okay," Daniel said with a tired shrug. "I guess I'll just … stay here then."

Johnny rolled his eyes. "Well, that's not happening, either."

"Look, you can fix my leg, and we can leave. Or, you don't, I stay on the ground, and you leave without me. Not seeing a third option here."

The pain on Daniel's face, in his eyes and voice made Johnny feel guilty about stalling. The guy couldn't even finish a sentence without stopping to breathe in the middle. But, damn it, he couldn't do it. Yeah, maybe he could improvise enough first aid to keep someone from bleeding to death, but he was pretty sure bones were meant to go in very specific places. When they weren't where they belonged, he should definitely leave it up to someone who knew what they were doing to put them back. He shrugged and looked away.

"I'll just carry you."

Daniel snorted. "You're not carrying me."

"You saying I can't carry your skinny ass, LaRusso?" Johnny's insulted tone was only partly feigned.

"My ass isn't as skinny as it used to be," Daniel shot back. "But, no. I'm saying there's no reason for you to carry me. If you fix my knee, I should be able to walk."

Johnny dropped his head and stared at the ground. "You're beat up enough," he said. "No point in me making it worse."

"You won't." Daniel was being way too patient. He was the one who was hurt, damn it. Why was he comforting and reassuring Johnny? If anything, it should have been the other way around.

He shook his head and tried to talk his way out of it again, anyway. "You can't tell me it's not gonna hurt."

"Oh, no," Daniel admitted. "It's gonna hurt like a son of a bitch. But it'll hurt a hell of a lot less than it does now when you're done."

Johnny bit his lip.

"My leg, it ... it hurts, Johnny," Daniel said softly. "It really, really hurts. And I'd really … like you to make it stop." There should have been tears in his eyes, but there weren't. Johnny definitely remembered him crying from the pain when they were kids. Just how many times had he been through it in the years since, to be able to hold it in like that? "I'm asking … I just … I need your help. Please."

Johnny knew how hard it had been for him to say those words to Daniel. It had to have been just as hard for Daniel to say them to him. What he'd been asking for hadn't been half as important, hadn't had nearly as much riding on it, and Daniel had still ended up saying yes. Who the hell was he to say no to him?

Daniel was in pain, and he was the only one who could stop it.

He rose up slightly on his knees, nodded his head slowly, and finally looked Daniel in the eye. "You sure about this?"

Daniel grinned tiredly and leaned his head back. "Come on, ya big baby," he said, not unkindly. "You're wasting time. Just get it over with."

"Okay," he agreed reluctantly. "Okay, yeah. Let's do this." He moved to his left, positioning himself next to Daniel's knee, and he ran his hands down his face. "I can do this." He rubbed his thighs a couple of times, and then he reached for the knife in his back pocket.

"Don't." Daniel's voice stopped him cold. Oh, yeah. He had a problem with knives. At least, he had a problem with that particular knife. How'd he forgotten about that so fast?

For a few seconds, he considered indulging him. Daniel had been through more than enough for one day, with the promise of more ahead. If there was anything Johnny could do to make it easier for him, he would do it. But one look between the leg of those jeans and the shape and size of that knee, and he was shaking his head.

"No," he said. "There's no way I can pull it up high enough, and you know it."

"These are my favorite jeans." The casualness in Daniel's voice was forced, and it was too obvious to miss, but Johnny pretended he didn't hear it. "Besides, I don't want to walk around with my pant leg flapping open." There was an almost innocent hopefulness in those words, and Johnny found himself wanting to give in. But he couldn't.

They both knew the real reason Daniel didn't want to see that knife again. They both knew why he didn't want it close to him. But they also both knew what he was asking Johnny to do was impossible.

"I get it," Johnny said. "I do. But I'm not even going to try to get them past that. It would …" He stopped himself short of saying it would hurt Daniel too much. Why that suddenly mattered to him, he wasn't exactly sure, but that was one more thing he didn't have either the time or inclination to think about. "I can't do that. I have to cut them. So, just ... close your eyes or something, okay?"

Daniel took a deep breath. "Okay. You're right. Okay." He nodded slowly and closed his eyes. "Just, please, don't let it …"

"I won't," Johnny promised.

Daniel dug his fingers into the dirt.

"You can do this," Johnny said. He wasn't sure if he was talking to Daniel or himself, but he didn't think it really mattered. They both needed the pep talk, anyway. He started slicing the denim, slowly, carefully, breathing deeply as he did. "We can do this."

Daniel tensed and groaned as the blade got closer to his knee. Johnny wondered if it was the occasional tugs he was having to make on the knife causing that, or if the whole idea of it being less than half-an-inch from his skin was screwing with his head that badly.

"I'm probably gonna scream. Ignore me."

Johnny nodded. "I can do that." It wouldn't be the first time. "Not a problem."

"No matter what I say. Once you start, do not stop until you feel ..."

The higher the knife got, the less room there was between the jeans and Daniel's leg, and the harder it was to move it forward without letting it touch his skin. Every move of Johnny's hand resulted in another violent yank on that knee. It didn't matter how slowly he moved; it didn't help. He started cutting faster, trying to get it over with as quickly as possible, and suddenly, Daniel's hand was wrapped around his wrist, fingers tightening with bruising force.

"Christ," Daniel gasped out, lifting his shoulders away from the branch. Johnny stopped, but Daniel shook his head forcefully. "No. Don't … don't stop. The faster, the better. I'm fine." He leaned back again, biting his lip and closing his eyes. "It's fine. Keep going."

Johnny gave the knife one last, quick pull, and the denim gave way, splitting open like an over-ripe tomato. He flinched and sucked in an involuntary gulp of air when he finally saw what had been hidden beneath it. Daniel's knee wasn't just swollen and bent wrong. It was a grotesque, distorted, red and black and purple mess. It didn't even look like it belonged on a human.

"Jesus _fuck_ , LaRusso," he breathed. He put his left hand on top of the fingers Daniel still dug into his wrist. "Are you really sure about this?"

Daniel lifted his head and looked down at his leg with another deep, shaking inhale. "Oh, yeah," he said. He smiled half-heartedly. "But that … was the easy part."

"Shit."

Daniel released his grip on Johnny's wrist and dug his fingers into the dirt again. Johnny closed the knife and put it back in his pocket, hoping he'd never have to make Daniel look at the damn thing again.

"Now what?"

"Okay. You see that big lump on the side there?" Of course, he did. At that moment, he didn't see anything else. "That's my kneecap. It's not supposed to be there."

"Figured that out already."

"So, you're gonna put it back. Where it belongs. In the middle. Have to do it fast. Do it slow, you'll be … torturing me. Got it?"

Johnny nodded again, still transfixed by the sight in front of him. "You really fix this by yourself?"

Daniel shook his head. "Not this bad. Mr. Miyagi always ..." His voice faded away. "Dislocated joints … prone to re-injury. Bump it on something, twist it wrong, step on it wrong, it goes out. I got used to it. But he never ..." He took another deep breath. "Learned to fix it. But when it was bad, he did it. Never let me watch. Never even let me see it. So, this … this is a first."

"I'm honored," Johnny deadpanned.

"Just remember, once you start, can't stop until you feel it."

"Feel what?"

Daniel smirked. "Hard to describe. Believe me. You'll know …" He tapped the side of his left thigh. "Put your right hand here."

Johnny did.

"Gonna use the heel of your hand, side of your thumb. Gonna push it sideways."

That was all he had to do? That didn't sound so hard.

"Should move pretty easily. May have to use some force … if it doesn't want to go."

That really didn't sound that bad.

"You'll feel it. And hear it. You'll know about … half a second before I do."

Johnny didn't know if the pain was worse or better or the same, but Daniel's breathing hadn't slowed down any. He also wasn't always bothering with complete sentences anymore, almost as if the effort to form them was too much for him. He was looking off into the distance, apparently trying to distract himself from what was about to happen, even as he was explaining how to do it.

It was easier to do that kind of stuff while the person you were doing it to was preoccupied, wasn't it? That's how it always went in the movies anyway.

"First, you ..."

Johnny pressed his hand against the protruding bone and pushed it toward the inside of Daniel's leg as hard as he could.

"Stop!"

It was like someone threw a switch. One second, Daniel was calm and talking, and the next, he was screaming bloody murder. He'd said it would hurt, right? He'd said he'd scream, to ignore him, to keep going no matter what.

Johnny kept going.

"No! Not yet! Stop! Stop!" Daniel threw his head back again, bellowed in agony, and grabbed Johnny's wrist hard enough to grind the bones together. Then he reached across himself and punched him in the chest. "Fuckin' stop!"

Johnny's stomach clenched. Daniel wasn't just reacting to the pain. Whatever he'd just done, he'd done it wrong. Despite Daniel's belief that he wouldn't, he'd made it worse. He knew he had. He pulled his hand away like he'd been burned.

Daniel let go of Johnny's wrist again, jerked his whole body to the right, and threw up.

"Oh, Jesus," Johnny muttered. He leaned forward and put his right hand on Daniel's back. "Shit, LaRusso, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't … I … God ..."

Daniel reached back blindly with his left hand, grabbed the front of Johnny's shirt, and pulled himself up. He lifted his right hand shakily and swiped at his mouth with the back of his arm. Johnny moved his hand to Daniel's upper arm as he tried to steady himself.

"That ..." he gasped, "... was wrong."

Yeah, that was pretty fucking obvious. "What'd I do? I screwed it up."

"Remember … torture thing?"

"Shit."

Daniel shook his head to clear it. "No, s'okay. I just … didn't finish telling … what to do. My fault. My fault. S'okay." No, it wasn't Daniel's fault. It was Johnny's fault. Anybody with half a brain could see that. "Try … again."

Johnny shook his head and kept his hands as far from Daniel's leg as possible.

"Listen to me. Do exactly … what I say. It'll work." He sounded so sure, but the pain in his voice was something Johnny couldn't ignore. "But … do that again … punching you in the face." Johnny looked up, horrified, and he was surprised to see an exhausted but somehow playful grin on Daniel's face. "Okay?"

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, okay. If I torture you, you can punch me in the face. That's fair."

Daniel tapped his thigh again. "Right hand here. Thumb against the bone. **Don't** push yet." Johnny did as he was told. "Left hand on my ankle." Johnny wrapped his fingers around it. "You have to … pull the bone down. Not far. Give the kneecap … room to move. And have to … straighten my leg. While you're pushing. That's what … what was missing."

"How long does it take?"

"Do it right … couple seconds. Do it wrong … never work."

Johnny heard the shaking in his voice, looked up at him, and saw the pinch around his eyes. He was trying to downplay how much pain Johnny had just caused him, but he couldn't hide it all. In truth, he couldn't hide any of it. Johnny pulled his hands away and sat back again.

"What … are you doing?" Daniel asked. "Got it now."

"Yeah," Johnny admitted. "I think I do. But I just fucked it up a whole lot worse, didn't I? And that's not gonna go away like it would have. Is it?"

Daniel shrugged reluctantly. "Probably not. But unless you've got … morphine ..."

Johnny leaned forward and grabbed the front of the jacket he'd draped around Daniel's shoulders. "Not quite," he said as he reached into the inside pocket. When he sat back, he had a flask in his hand and a smile on his face. "But close enough."

Daniel rolled his eyes. "What is this? Some kind of … bad buddy western?"

Johnny snorted, unscrewed the cap, and handed it to him. "Just drink it."

Daniel sniffed it and turned his head away. "God. What is that?"

"Strong," Johnny answered. "Drink it." Daniel put the flask to his lips, threw his head back, and pulled a face. "More," Johnny said.

Daniel took another swig, and that one made him cough. He grabbed his side and almost doubled over, then flopped back, panting. "S'awful. Gonna puke … again."

"No, you're not. You're gonna like it in a minute," Johnny promised. "Finish it. All of it."

Daniel tipped the flask twice more, finishing it off in two big swallows. Johnny knew what the man looked like when he was drunk, though he preferred their first drinking experience – even as badly as it had ended – to the way the second one was starting. He knew what to watch for. He didn't know how much Daniel drank normally, but he knew he was buzzed after two martinis. The whiskey he'd just tossed back was stronger than any martini. When Daniel's eyes fell closed and the flask slid out of his hand, Johnny took it away from him and smirked.

"You're a cheap date, LaRusso."

"Been called worse," Daniel muttered. "By you."

He hadn't expected it to take long, but had it actually hit him already?

"Yeah, well." Johnny shrugged and put his hands back on Daniel's thigh and ankle. "I'm an excellent judge of character."

"You're mean."

Yeah, he was drunk. It had only been a couple of minutes. How'd that happen so fast? It had happened too damn fast. No, Daniel wasn't a big guy by any definition, and he had just puked up his lunch, but ...

 _'You didn't think that through, did you?'_

 _'Crap.'_

Johnny closed his eyes. Four or five shots of whiskey at a bar after dinner left him staggering and stumbling in the streets. And he'd convinced a man who was at least thirty pounds lighter than him to down almost that much, in barely a minute, on an empty stomach.

 _'This is going to be ... interesting.'_

 _'You can shut up and go away again.'_

"And I … am not trash."

His stomach dropped at the words. He thought about all the names he'd called Daniel through the years. Had he ever called him that? He didn't remember. He didn't really want to remember, but he had to keep the conversation going. He had to keep Daniel talking, even if it was a lousy topic to get into at that moment.

"I never called you trash." For all he knew, that might be true. He was going to pretend it was, even if it wasn't. He tightened his hand around Daniel's ankle, running his eyes up his leg, trying to figure out where the middle of it actually was. It was harder than it should have been. "I called you a twerp. A worm. Definitely an asshole. Probably a prick. Said I don't trust you. Called your family rotten."

He regretted the words the second they passed his lips, but he couldn't take them back. He was supposed to be taking care of Daniel's current wounds, not digging up old ones and making them worse.

 _'You're not helping, Lawrence.'_

 _'I'm shutting up. You should, too.'_

"Not rotten, either."

"I know." It wasn't enough to make up for everything that had happened, everything he'd done and said, and he knew it, but he didn't have time for anything else. He took a shaky breath, steadied his grip, and focused.

It was time.

Johnny pulled down on Daniel's ankle, felt his whole lower leg move, and the kneecap slipped out from under his thumb. Johnny followed the shifting bone with his hand, pulling Daniel's foot toward him as everything below his knee slid to the side.

Drunk or not, that had to hurt. Daniel's head shot up, eyes first wide-open and then squeezed shut. His right leg was shaking violently, and his fists were slamming into the ground by his hips rapidly and repeatedly. Why he didn't just let it out, Johnny didn't know, but he was going to put another hole in his lip if he kept biting it like that.

Johnny heard a slight pop at the same time he felt a snap beneath his thumb, and the scream finally escaped. But then it was over. The leg in his hands was straight, the protruding bone was back where it belonged, and – the best part – Daniel had stopped screaming, and his whole body had gone slack.

He'd done it.

He couldn't make himself look up, though. The words still hung in the air between them, and he wasn't ready to face them. He'd spent so much of the past thirty-four years blaming Daniel for everything that had gone wrong with his life, spent more than three decades hating him. But it wasn't all Daniel's fault, and he'd been wrong to think it was. He'd been wrong to say Daniel LaRusso was rotten to the core. He was beginning to realize he'd been wrong about a lot of things.

Daniel had been willing to sacrifice himself, and had almost done it, to protect Johnny and the boys. He'd refused to let Johnny look at his injuries until he knew the boys were safe. He hadn't let him tell Robby he was hurt because he wanted to make sure the boys got away from Mike. He'd been more worried about Johnny's head than he was about his dislocated kneecap and the bleeding hole in his side.

 _'Rotten assholes don't do stuff like that.'_

 _'I know they don't.'_

"LaRusso, I ..." He lifted his head only to see Daniel shaking his.

"Hey, Johnny?" The grin both surprised him and made him smile a bit in response. "Know what?"

"What?"

"You don't … trust me … but I … trust you …"

Johnny didn't know what to say to that, and even if he had, it wouldn't have mattered.

Daniel had passed out.

* * *

"We did the right thing."

Miguel's voice took Robby by surprise, and he glanced over at him. Neither of them had said much in the ten minutes since they'd left the mountain. The stereo wasn't even on. Robby had been using the silence to focus himself on the task they'd laid out for themselves. He'd assumed Miguel was doing the same.

It appeared, however, that Miguel had other things on his mind.

"Didn't we?"

Robby nodded as he turned his eyes back to the road. "We did," he said. "I don't like it, either. I want to be up there with them more than anything. But you were right. We did the only thing we could."

Robby was struck by how quickly they'd changed places, and he wasn't comfortable with it. He'd only just started believing that leaving had been the best of the two terrible choices they'd had. That it would work. That it would be worth it. That it was the only way they could help the two men they'd left behind. As uncertain as he'd been, and still was, he didn't know if he was the best person to convince Miguel of any of that. If the guy who'd decided what they needed to do was starting to doubt what they'd done ...

"We couldn't do it alone."

Miguel was staring out the window, watching the trees fly by as they sped down the two-lane highway. "Yeah. I guess." He didn't sound very believable.

"They need us, but we need help. This is how we get it." He was repeating the words Miguel had said to him, the same words he'd been saying to himself, trying to persuade his heart to shut up and listen to his head. The whole thing had been Miguel's idea. He'd known exactly how to apply the Cobra Kai philosophy to their situation. He'd believed they could help, if they did it his way. He'd talked Robby into it in the first place. If he needed a little of that same reassurance from him, well, Robby guessed he could give it to him.

He owed him at least that much.

"Are you listening to me? Miguel?"

"No," Miguel said. "You're right. We had to." His voice was growing stronger, and the faith he'd shown in the plan from the start was coming back. "We wouldn't have had a chance. It'll be better this way." He pushed himself up straighter in his seat, and Robby let out a silent sigh of relief. "Yeah. We got this." Then, after a few more seconds of silence, Miguel said, "Who do you think that Mike guy is, anyway?"

"Someone Mr. LaRusso knows that my dad doesn't." He shook his head and shrugged. "Why does it matter who he is? What matters is what he's doing."

"It would be easier," Miguel said. "If we knew something about him, I mean. If we knew what we're gonna be up against. We need to think about what we're walking into. Does he do karate, too? Is that how Mr. LaRusso knows him? Is he any good at it?"

"He has to be," Robby pointed out. "Mr. LaRusso's afraid of him, and I've never seen him be scared of anyone."

"I guess that's true. Sensei was on edge, too, and he's not scared of anyone, either."

Robby bristled inwardly at Miguel trying to tell him about his own father, as if he didn't know him, but he took a deep breath and pushed the feeling down. After all, until that afternoon, he hadn't had a real conversation with the man in more than six months, and that had been just another fight. Miguel spent time with him every day. He knew Mr. LaRusso better than Miguel did, didn't he? It would make sense for Miguel to know Johnny better than Robby did, too, and for the same reason. But Robby still thought he was wrong about something.

"I don't think Dad was so much scared," he said. "I think, weird as it sounds, he was almost as worried about Mr. LaRusso as I was. As I am."

"And as I am about him." Miguel shifted in the seat and turned to face him for the first time since they'd been driving. "Do you think ..." His voice trailed off, and he shook his head. "No, never mind."

"Do I think what?"

"Well, I was just wondering. Why didn't they tell us the truth, either of them? Mr. LaRusso lied to us about Mike, because he didn't want us to know he was scared, but we really need to know, right?"

Robby nodded again. "Yeah, but, he didn't exactly have a choice, did he? I mean, the guy was standing right there. Who knows what he'd have done if Mr. LaRusso had said anything."

"I guess," Miguel said, thoughtfully. "But then, Sensei didn't tell us why we should leave, only that we had to. And if you're right about Mr. LaRusso being hurt, then they both lied to us about that. So why did they do that? Don't they trust us?"

Robby had thought about that a few times himself, wondered why they hadn't told them the truth, and he'd come to a conclusion that made a lot of sense. "I think that was my fault," he said.

"How is it your fault?"

"Because I had this ... this stupid dream," he admitted. "Nightmare. About Mr. LaRusso. And it's been messing with me all day. So when I heard him saying the things he said, when I thought it was coming true, I ... I kinda flipped out."

Miguel smiled crookedly. "Kinda?"

"Okay, fine. I freaked the fuck out. But, anyway, I think they probably thought that if they told us the truth, I wouldn't leave. And if I didn't leave, then you probably wouldn't leave. And then we'd still be there, and we'd all four be in danger, and I ... I think they were right." He shook his head again. "No, I know they were, because I almost didn't leave." He glanced over at Miguel once more. "If it wasn't for you, I would have stayed. And I'd have gone running off after them. And as bad as the whole thing is, I'd have made everything worse."

"It's not just you, ya know," Miguel said. "I wanted to stay, too. And for what it's worth, part of me kinda wishes we had. It's like, I know we didn't have a choice, and I know we're doing the right thing, but I still feel like we ..." Miguel stopped talking and turned to stare out the window again.

"Ran away and abandoned them." Robby finished the sentence for him. "Yeah. So do I."

"Does it make you feel better to know they wanted us to?" Miguel asked. "That they ordered us to?"

"No," Robby answered, shaking his head. "It doesn't. Not really."

"But ..."

"But we're going back." He spoke the words forcefully, both for his own sake and for Miguel's. "We're not leaving them there. We're going to go back, and whatever the hell went wrong up there, we're gonna fix it. We're gonna help them." As he spoke the words, he found himself finally, honestly, truly believing them. "We're gonna strike as hard as we can, and we're gonna save them."

Miguel turned back toward him, a confident smile on his face and a determined look in his eyes. "Damn right, we are."

A sudden ding from the dashboard took them both by surprise. It was followed quickly by another, then, a few seconds later, two more.

"What's that?" Miguel asked.

Robby looked down at the display, and he wrinkled his forehead at what he saw. "Tire pressure gauge," he said, pointing at the red numbers in front of him. "We've got a flat tire."

Miguel looked out the window and down at the road, as if he could see the tires from where he was sitting. "Which one?"

"Um ..." That couldn't be right, could it? How was that even possible? "All four of them?"

"What?" Miguel spun back around in surprise.

"Mike must have slashed the tires." It was the only answer that made any sense. There was no other way all four of them could have gone flat at the same time. "He had to have. I bet he was trying to keep anyone from leaving."

"Why did it take so long? And shouldn't we pull over?"

Robby shook his head. "There's no point. Even if we could change one of them, we'd still have three flats. And it doesn't matter, anyway, because Audis don't come with spares."

Miguel's eyes widened. "Who the hell thought that was a good idea?!"

"No, it's okay. They're designed that way," Robby explained. "They've got run-flats. We can go at least 50 miles on them."

"How far are we from the city?"

Robby glanced out the window, looking for something that would tell him exactly where they were. "Probably another twenty? No more than twenty-five. We'll make it back. We'll be okay."

"Okay, yeah," Miguel said. "So we can get to the Valley. But what do we do then? How are we supposed to get back up there with four flat tires?"

Robby smiled confidently. He finally had an actual part to play in the whole fiasco. Car problems were something he knew how to fix. "We just need to get new ones."

"On a Saturday? And how much do tires for this thing cost, anyway?" Miguel was getting frustrated and anxious, but Robby's smile didn't fade. For the first time since he'd gotten out of bed, he actually felt like he could control something. "They can't be cheap. How much money do you have? Because I've got maybe ten bucks in my pocket."

"We don't need it," Robby said. "I know a place we can get them. There's plenty of them there. And we don't need any money."

"What the hell are you talking about? How do we get tires with no money?"

"I'm talking about a car dealership," he said. "It closed at noon, but that's not a problem. Because I know how to get in." He looked over at Miguel and raised his eyebrows. "And I just happen to know the guy who owns the place."

* * *

"Johnny?"

Daniel's eyes weren't open, his voice was wobbly, and even though he'd only said one word, it managed to be slurred. But at least he was awake. He wasn't trying to stand up, he wasn't fighting, and he knew who else was there. All of those things were a vast improvement over the last time he'd woken up.

"Whatchya doin'?"

Johnny was wiping the gash above Daniel's left eye, trying to get the dried blood off his skin and out of his eyebrow. He paused briefly when Daniel spoke, but he resumed the task as he answered. "I'm trying to fix your face," he said.

"Oh." Daniel responded like that was the most logical thing in the world for him to be doing, despite how absolutely surreal and bizarre it sounded. A few seconds passed in silence. "Wha's wrong with it?"

"You mean other than it's yours? Or the blood and cuts and bruises all over?"

"Oh. Yeah. Those." Daniel's forehead crinkled slightly, but his eyes remained closed. "Yer washin' m'face?"

"Yes, LaRusso." Johnny filled his voice with a patience he didn't feel, and he glanced around as he talked. In the time that had passed since Daniel had been out, a pit had been growing in the center of his stomach. He'd ignored it at first, thinking it was just anxiousness still hanging around after having had to put Daniel's leg back together, but it hadn't faded. If anything, it was growing stronger, and it seemed to be warning him of an impending danger he couldn't see.

He had zero doubt about what, or rather who, that danger was. His gut was telling him it was time for them to move, and he was going to have to listen to it soon. But he had to give Daniel a few minutes to get his bearings before they even tried.

"I'm washing your face. You decided to take a nap, and I didn't have anything better to do."

He did have other things to do, but he'd already done them all. His first order of business, after he'd realized there would be no waking Daniel up until he was damn good and ready to do it, had been to get the red jacket on him instead of just wrapped around his shoulders. Once they started moving, there'd be no way it would stay there, and it would work better, and keep him warmer, if he was actually wearing it. He hadn't thought it would be all that hard to do. He'd dressed a sleeping Robby more than once, when he was little, but putting pajamas on a napping toddler was nothing compared to trying to put a jacket on an unconscious, full grown man. It hadn't been easy, but Daniel hadn't moved or flinched or groaned, not even when Johnny had pulled him up from the ground and all but manhandled his arms into the sleeves.

After that, he'd searched the immediate area for a couple of small, sturdy branches. It hadn't taken him long to find what he'd needed. Both were no more than an inch and a half in diameter and a little under eighteen inches long. He'd used four leftover strips of t-shirt to tie them securely in place on either side of Daniel's leg. The makeshift splint started halfway down his calf and went halfway up his thigh. That should give his leg the extra support it would need to hold his weight, plus keep his knee from bending, which would hopefully stop his kneecap from sliding out of place again. As a bonus, it was holding most of the sliced-open pant leg closed. One more strip, wrapped around Daniel's ankle, would make sure it stayed that way.

"Oh," Daniel said again. "Whatchya washin' it with?"

Johnny glanced down at the small square of wet fabric in his hand – yet another piece of Daniel's sacrificed t-shirt – and smiled to himself. He'd found the creek while he'd been looking for branches. It was just behind the tree line, no more than ten feet from them, and when it came time to start cleaning Daniel up, he hadn't even questioned how he'd do it. He knew it wasn't fair to take advantage of Daniel's weakened and highly inebriated state, but he just couldn't help himself.

"Spit, of course. What else do I have?"

It took a few seconds for the words to sink in to Daniel's brain, but when they did, Johnny got the reaction he'd been looking for.

"Gross!" Daniel opened his eyes and started batting Johnny's hands away like he was swatting a fly. "Get 'way from ... shit, man!" He started rubbing his face with his own hands, trying to wipe what he thought to be a very offensive substance off.

Johnny fought the urge to laugh, enjoying his humor but unwilling to ruin it. Then he realized Daniel's cheek, which had taken the longest to stop, had reopened and started bleeding again.

"Hey!" he called out. "Quit that!"

"I can' b'lieve ... dude ... tha'so fuckin' gross!"

"Calm down, Princess," Johnny said. He pushed Daniel's hands aside and dabbed at the cut on his cheekbone again. "I didn't give you a damn spit bath. It's water, from a creek over there." He gestured toward the trees impatiently. "It's just water." He sighed as he kept working. "I just got this messed up face of yours to look almost human, and now you've screwed it up again. I swear, LaRusso, you are such a pain in my ass."

"Ya said ya spit on me."

"Yeah, it was a joke. It's not my fault you're drunk enough to believe me."

"Is too!" Daniel protested. "Stupid whiskey ... yer stupid idea."

"Can you even feel your face right now?"

Daniel had to think about that for a second. "No."

"Do you hurt anywhere else?"

"Well ... no. Can' really feel ... an'thing."

"Then it wasn't such a stupid idea, was it?"

Daniel's cheekbone had stopped bleeding again, so Johnny sat back and looked Daniel's face over one more time. That and his eyebrow had been the worst of it, but they didn't look so bad once they were cleaned up. They were wide, but they weren't very deep. His nose had stopped bleeding without any intervention, so all he'd had to do was clean under and around it. The blood running out of his mouth had come from a gouge on the inside of his lip, and that had stopped on its own, too. Daniel still had all his teeth, it didn't look like Mike had knocked any of them loose, and his nose wasn't broken. All in all, and considering what else had happened, his face had gotten off easy.

Relatively easy, that was.

"You're gonna look like a lopsided raccoon," he announced.

Maybe the bleeding parts weren't that bad, but the bruising was going to more than make up for it. Daniel's right eye looked like it had stopped swelling, and he could still open it, but it was already starting to turn a spectacular shade of purplish black. His left jaw was doing the same, spreading more than halfway up his face, along the outside of his eye. He had a large bruise on his right cheek, under and around the cut, all the way from his nose to his ear, and another on his chin. His face was a kaleidoscope of varying shades of red, purple, blue and black, and it was only going to get worse. Cracked or broken bones were a very real possibility, but he had no idea how to check for those.

"You didn't have to catch his fist with your face every time he threw it, ya know."

"Too busy to duck," Daniel answered.

"That doesn't make much sense." Johnny tossed the rag aside, dried his hand on his jeans, and pushed himself to his feet. "If you're in a fight, you should never be too busy to duck. Kinda hard to win if you let the other guy keep punching you in the face."

"Yeah, well ... din't win. Did I?"

Johnny tipped his head and looked down at him. "Actually, I kinda think you did. At least, you were winning. Until you decided to walk away. Speaking of which ..." The pit in his stomach had crawled its way up his neck and into his shoulders, and he looked around again. "It's time to get up, LaRusso," he said. "On your feet. We gotta get moving."

Daniel just laid there and blinked up at him.

"Come on. You said you could walk if I fixed your knee. I fixed it. So walk."

Daniel sighed and rolled to his side, slowly pushing himself up on his elbows and right knee. His left leg, held immobile by the splint, stuck out behind him. He should be able to get up anyway; Johnny had watched him get up from that exact same position at the tournament when they were kids. He got his hands under him, but then he pitched forward, landed back on his elbows, and dropped his forehead to his hands.

"What's wrong?"

"Ground," Daniel mumbled. "S'movin'. Gimme ..." He tried again, but he didn't have any more luck the second time. "Nope," he said. "Still movin'. 'll jus' ... m'good here."

Johnny slapped his face with both hands. "You gotta be kiddin' me."

"S'yer fault."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." Johnny added Daniel's drunken inability to stand up to the ever-growing list of things that had been his fault in the last hour, and he dropped his hands to his sides. Then he bent down, reached under Daniel's arms, and wrapped his own arms around Daniel's chest. "Up ya go, Dannyboy," he said. He steadied himself, stood, and hauled Daniel bodily to his feet.

Daniel bit off a cry of pain, groaned, and stumbled backwards. He ended up half-slumped against Johnny's chest, with the side of his head on his shoulder. Johnny looked down to see his eyes starting to roll back again. "Oh, no, you don't," he said. He tapped Daniel's cheek lightly. "Hey, look at me, LaRusso. Stay with me here."

Daniel jerked his head up and pulled away, far too quickly for his brain to compensate for what his body was doing. Johnny jumped forward, turned, and stepped in front of him, grabbing his shoulders to keep him from faceplanting. "Hey!" he shouted. "You in there?"

Daniel nodded slowly. "Gimme ... minute ..."

Johnny glanced around nervously. That feeling of danger was getting too strong to ignore. "I don't think we've got a minute, Daniel. We have gotta go. Now."

Daniel forced his eyes open and made himself focus on Johnny's face. Johnny knew the second he'd caught his meaning. Those blood-shot brown eyes widened and filled with fear, his left hand wrapped around Johnny's arm, and his right hand grasped at the front of his shirt.

"Mike ..."

"He's not here," Johnny said. "Not yet. But we've been here too long. He'll be back sooner or later, and we can't be here when he shows up."

Daniel nodded slowly. "Okay. S'okay," he said. "Got this." Johnny moved to the side, giving Daniel enough room to take a step but still keeping one hand on his arm for balance. "Got it." Daniel stepped forward with his right leg, and his knee didn't buckle, which was a good sign. But when he tried to do the same with his left, swinging it to the side to compensate for not being able to bend it, it slid out from under him, and he toppled forward. "D'n't got it."

Johnny caught him before he hit the ground.

"Yeah, you don't got it." Johnny pulled him upright again. "Ya know, we're not gonna get very far very fast if you're gonna fall down every other step."

"Don' get up, Daniel," Daniel muttered. "Don' fall down, Daniel. Make up ... yer damn mind, Johnny."

"How the hell did you fight on that leg when you can't even stand on it?"

"Could bend it. 'N sober. 'N sixteen."

Johnny nodded. "Got it. You're crippled and drunk and old now."

"Younger'n you."

Johnny shook his head, grabbed Daniel's wrist, lifted it up, and ducked under it.

"Whatchya doin'?"

"Making up my damn mind," Johnny replied. He pulled Daniel's left arm across his shoulders. Then he put his right arm around Daniel's back, wrapped his fingers around and through his belt, and pulled him both straighter on his feet and tighter against his side. "We're doing this my way."

"'kay," Daniel actually giggled as he said that. What the hell was so funny? "Ya say so ..."

"Yeah, I say so." Johnny stepped forward, and Daniel did the same. It took them a few steps to get into a rhythm, but once they did, they fell into it more easily than Johnny had expected.

"Three-leg'd race. Jus' like … kids. But slower." Daniel snickered. What could he possibly think was funny?

"I'm glad you find this amusing," Johnny said.

"D'n't," Daniel answered. "D'n't laugh, 'll cry. 'm n't g'nna ... cry ..."

"Yeah," Johnny said softly. "I kinda noticed that."

Daniel's leg didn't seem to be giving him much trouble, other than being awkward, but Johnny was also holding him up, so he wasn't having to put much weight on it. But at some point, he had moved his right hand back to his side. The first time they stopped to rest, Johnny would have to check to make sure that hadn't started bleeding again. He didn't know that Daniel would tell him if it did. Hell, as drunk as he was, he wasn't all that sure he would even notice.

"So," Johnny began, as they walked – well, he walked and Daniel limped – out of the clearing. "Let me recap my day so far. I came here to ask you for a tiny little favor and do a little camping. We almost got in a fight. The boys almost got in a fight. You chewed my ass for everything I've ever done wrong. Some asshole I've never met knocked me out with a tree branch. You ran off and got yourself stabbed. I followed you up here to save your ass from your own stupidity. And now, I'm dragging a drunk with a gimpy leg, a hole in his side, and a damn case of the giggles down a mountain." Daniel chuckled again, and Johnny couldn't help it. He smiled. Maybe Daniel was onto something with that whole 'laugh so you don't cry' thing.

"We should go camping together more often, LaRusso. I'm having a fucking blast."

The sound of Daniel's laughter echoing off the trees was, strangely, the greatest thing Johnny had heard all day.

* * *

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a blurry blanket of green.

He blinked a few times, and that one big fuzzy thing sharpened into a thousand smaller ones. Leaves. Blue sky behind them. Trees.

He was lying on his back. On the ground. In the woods. He didn't know how he'd gotten there. The last thing he remembered was ….

"Daniel."

He pushed himself to his feet, turning a few times to get his bearings. His mind cleared quickly, as it always did. His memories returned a few seconds later. All of them.

He'd found somewhere to hole up to recover from his injuries. He'd taken too many. He'd been unprepared. His target had some tricks he hadn't revealed before. But none of that mattered. It was the end of the game that mattered.

He was going to win. He always did.

He turned to his left, found his own trail, and followed it back the way he'd gone to get where he was.

He'd been on a job for the better part of a year – a personal one. He'd been back in California since he'd first heard a rumor that someone had reopened the Cobra Kai dojo. _His_ Cobra Kai dojo. He'd gone there to take it back. He'd been sitting in his car, waiting for the spic-kid to leave and that blond guy to come out alone.

He'd seen a lot in his fifty-one years. He'd done a lot. He'd watched blood be spilled, and he'd spilled it himself. He'd witnessed the rise of kings and the fall of saints. He'd been the beginning and end of more than one. Very few things surprised him. But he couldn't believe his eyes – or his luck – when the dark-haired man pulled up and went inside. A few minutes later, he'd come back out, gotten in his car, and taken his own sweet time leaving.

He'd smiled for the first time in years.

He'd forgotten about the blond guy, the kid and the dojo. They were nothing. He'd followed the sedan out of the parking lot and onto the streets of the Valley. And he'd stayed behind him. Everywhere he went. For months. He'd been to his home. His business. His country club. Restaurants. Bars. The grocery store. The cemetery. The All-Valley Arena.

The mountain.

He'd stayed just out of sight. Just around the corner. Just behind the door. He'd done his job perfectly. He'd watched him. Observed him. Studied him. Learned him.

He knew Daniel LaRusso better than Daniel LaRusso did.

He'd enjoyed the hunt. He always did, but that one had given him more pleasure than any of the others. That one was personal. He'd taken his time. Savored his secrecy. Planned his moves meticulously. All that was left was to decide on his final strike. His last move. His killing blow.

Then, his phone rang.

 _'I have a job for you, Mr. Barnes.'_

 _'I don't work for you anymore, old man. I'm not interested.'_

 _'You haven't heard who it is.'_

The prospect of payment was always a good thing. That he was going to be paid to do something he'd been doing for fun was even better.

 _'Why now? After all these years?'_

 _'He's corrupting someone who is very important to me. I want you to save him.'_

He wasn't in the business of saving people. Sometimes, it was a side effect. But it was never the objective.

 _'We both have an interest in this, don't we, Mr. Barnes? Tell me you don't want it as badly as I do.'_

 _'You know I can't say that. You know what I think. What I've always thought.'_

He'd never lied about his hatred when asked. But very few had ever asked. He'd always held it close to his vest. Kept it just beneath the surface. Never let it interfere. He'd channeled all of it into one point of focus. One memory. One defeat. One person. He'd held it where he could direct all emotions at it. He'd poured everything he'd ever felt, never felt, and never wanted to feel into it, leaving nothing else to cloud his mind.

There was good money in hatred. There was better money in apathy.

 _'I should have let you do it when you asked.'_

 _'Yes, you should have.'_

He'd missed his first chance to rid himself of Daniel LaRusso. He wouldn't miss his second. Even if taking it meant that his dojo would remain firmly in someone else's hands.

 _'The future of Cobra Kai rests on your success. Johnny Lawrence must stay true to us. To himself.'_

 _'What is he? What is he to you? To me?'_

 _'He is everything.'_

He'd done his best to keep Blondie out of it. He'd chosen the perfect location for his attack. The only possible collateral damage was a brat who'd latched on to Daniel LaRusso and refused to let go. That he was Blondie's son was of no consequence.

In all the months he'd been stalking his prey, he'd never seen Blondie and the brat together. Then, he'd coached the beaner. He'd stood there and watched him beat on his own kid. He wouldn't care if that same kid got caught in the crossfire.

 _'Mr. Lawrence is not to be hurt. That is the only demand I have.'_

 _'If he stays out of my way, he'll be fine.'_

He hadn't expected Blondie and the spic-kid to show up. But he'd adapted. He'd overcome. He'd improvised. He'd made it so Blondie couldn't get in his way. He'd figured out how to use both brats to his advantage.

Weaponizing the three of them against his real target had been too easy.

 _'Do you have a preferred method? How do you want it done?'_

 _'With blood, Mr. Barnes. I want it to be as bloody and painful as you can make it.'_

It couldn't have worked any better if he'd planned it. Daniel LaRusso had played the game perfectly, exactly the way he'd known he would. He'd been only too eager to offer himself in exchange. He'd do anything to protect them. He'd walked into his fate willingly and without hesitation.

 _'Make him suffer, Mr. Barnes. No mercy.'_

 _'Gladly, Sensei.'_

A man sacrificing himself to defend the innocent was something most would call honorable. Courageous. Righteous. He called it useless. Futile. Stupid.

Perfect.

 _'Will he interfere?'_

 _'He's not the type to risk himself for other people. Especially not this one.'_

But he had. For some reason, be it humanity or compassion or some other useless emotion he himself would never understand, Blondie had risked himself. He had actually attacked him. To protect an arrogant, undeserving, worthless piece of filth.

The old man was never going to believe it. His sainted, golden boy had turned traitor. He'd showed up at the wrong time. Stepped in when he shouldn't have. Allied himself with the wrong side.

Blondie was too far gone to save. He'd made his choice. He'd chosen Daniel LaRusso. Over his past. Over his future.

His betrayal would cost him.

 _'You will be well compensated.'_

 _'You know what I want, old man.'_

And he would get it. Cobra Kai was meant to be his. And it would be. He would regain his rightful place at the old man's right hand. It would be well worth the price of some blood and bruises.

 _'It's mine. It will be his. You can't change that.'_

 _'And if he doesn't deserve it?'_

 _'He does.'_

The ancient fallen tree loomed above him, but it was alone. The clearing was empty. He was the only living being there.

Where was he? Where were they?

Daniel LaRusso hadn't walked out of there on his own. He knew that. He was too good at his job. The man had help.

 _'He won't play hero?'_

 _'I can't imagine why he would. He never has before.'_

He glanced down at the disturbed earth. That was where he'd left him. That was where he'd last seen him.

Handprints in the dirt. Two smooth indentations – knees – near them. A puddle of red-tinged vomit. Splashes of darker red on the dried leaves. He knelt down. Discarded strips of cloth littered the ground. Someone had been bandaged there. Someone was bleeding.

He looked into the trees and smiled.

Daniel LaRusso had left a not-insignificant amount of his blood behind.

 _'You'll take the job?'_

 _'Of course, I will. You knew my answer before you called.'_

He hadn't missed. He'd hit his mark. He'd hurt him. Badly. It was only a matter of time.

His target had been painted. His prey had been weakened. His victim had been marked.

The hunt was on again. The game had begun anew. Daniel LaRusso may have played the last one to a draw, but there was no way in hell he was going to win. Blondie could help him all he wanted. It wouldn't matter.

One was injured, damaged beyond repair, dying. The other would be preoccupied, concerned with protecting him, distracted. When he found one, he would find the other. Both would pay for what they had done. Neither would leave the mountain.

Mike Barnes had a job to do, after all.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are ..."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

"Are we going the right way?"

Johnny's voice took him by surprise. They'd been walking in silence for so long that he'd almost forgotten someone else was there.

"Hm?"

Johnny sighed. "I said are we going the right way?"

"Oh, um …" He lifted his head and forced his eyes to focus on the trees around them. He hadn't even been paying attention to what direction they were headed. Johnny had seemed to know where he was going, and Daniel didn't have much choice but to go wherever he went, so he'd let his mind wander off without the rest of him. "Where we s'posed to be goin'?"

"Back down to the camp," Johnny said. "Remember? Stop at the first aid kit, and from there to my car."

"Ya don' know where yer car is?"

"Of course, I know where my car is," Johnny answered distractedly. "It's right next to yours."

"Isn' mine … gone?"

"Okay. So it's right next to where yours was."

"An' that is?"

"I have no idea. Why the hell do you think I'm dragging your ass down this mountain?" Daniel snorted, and Johnny looked around. "So. Are we going the right way or not?"

Daniel blinked a few times, trying to see past the fuzziness, and he raised his eyebrows. After almost a full sixty seconds more than it should have taken him, he finally realized where they were, and he answered Johnny's question. "Nope."

He didn't notice Johnny had stopped walking until he felt the tug on his arm and belt. "Hey! If it's the wrong way, then stop going that way, genius."

"Oh." He stumbled a bit as he stopped, but Johnny pulled him back up straight again. "Okay."

"Do you know where we are? Do you recognize anything?"

He had to think about that, too. It was somewhere he'd been recently, and that much he knew for sure. It took him another minute to put the scenery in context with the mountain, but once he had, he knew exactly where they were. The pile of fallen trees and crumbling rocks on their right was where he'd hidden from Mike. That meant they'd just come down the path Mike had been following before Daniel had led him in the opposite direction. It also meant they were standing on a slight incline that sloped down to the edge of a cliff about fifty feet to the left of them.

"LaRusso?"

"Yep."

He swore he actually heard Johnny roll his eyes. "You wanna share with the class?"

He shook his head, trying to clear it, but it didn't do any good. He hated losing control. He couldn't walk by himself, and he didn't understand why. He should have been able to, but he couldn't, and that was bad enough. He was freezing, even with Johnny's jacket on. His body kept switching between shivering and sweating. And that damn whiskey ... he couldn't even think.

He never let himself drink that much, and even if he did, he never drank that fast. He shouldn't have done it, and he'd known that while he was doing it. He should have just sucked it up and told Johnny, "No." But his knee hurt so badly, so much worse than it ever had before. And his side was killing him. He'd just wanted it to stop.

It had worked at first, and he'd been grateful. He'd been a stumbling, slurring, giggling mess, but it had been worth it. For a little while, at least, for just that short half hour or so of relief, it had been worth it. But it hadn't lasted. The pain was back, but his mind wasn't. What was the point of being drunk if everything still hurt? If his body could shut the effects of the whiskey off, why couldn't his brain?

"So stupid," he mumbled. "Think, Daniel. Think!" He reached up with his right hand, grabbed a handful of his own hair, and pulled it. "I gotta … just … focus."

"What are you doing?" Johnny asked. "Stop that." Johnny let go of his wrist and put his hand on top of Daniel's. Then he squeezed Daniel's fingers and pulled his hand away from his head. "Calm down, man. It's okay."

"Stop … sayin' that!" He tried to pull his hand away, but all he managed to do was throw himself off balance, and Johnny didn't let go. "It's not okay!" He wobbled on his right leg as he tried once more to yank his hand free. He started to topple forward, and he put his left foot down to catch himself. Fire erupted behind his kneecap, shooting up and down his leg, pouring through his veins, from his ankle to his hip. "Fuck!"

"Enough!" Johnny shouted. "Will you just … stop. Jesus Christ, LaRusso, knock it off. Stop fighting me." Johnny finally released his hand and grabbed his wrist again. "Ya know what? I need a break. We're gonna rest here." He didn't wait for an answer. He moved closer to the pile of trees, and before Daniel could do or say anything to stop him, he'd turned them around so their backs were to it. "We're just gonna sit down for …"

"Don' fuckin' … patronize me!" Johnny started to lower him down, but he stiffened his muscles and refused to bend. He wasn't completely helpless. He could at least sit down by himself. "I'm not … a damn child!"

"I didn't say anything about you. I said _I_ need a break. You're heavier than you look. My head hurts, and I'm tired. But while we're on the subject …" Johnny let go of both Daniel's wrist and belt, stepped away, and held his hands out to his sides. "If you don't want me to treat you like a _damn child_ , stop acting like one."

The sudden absence of Johnny's support was more than his body could handle. He was leaning too far forward. He pushed himself back with his right leg to keep from falling face-first into the dirt, but he moved too fast. His left foot slid out from under him, and his right knee buckled. He tried to catch himself with his arms, but he didn't move them quickly enough. Johnny jumped forward and reached for him, but neither of them were able to stop his left hip and lower side from slamming into the trees.

"Daniel!"

He had never felt pain like that in his life. His vision whited out. He had no idea what the scream that ripped itself from him sounded like, because he couldn't hear it. His entire being was centered on those few inches of ripped and sliced open flesh. Acid was pouring into and out of him. He pressed his hands against his side in an attempt to extinguish the flames he knew were eating away at it. He felt his own heart hammering behind his ears. He didn't know if he was breathing. He didn't care.

He had no idea how much time passed. It could have been seconds, minutes, hours, days. His hearing returned, slowly, and the pounding heartbeat in his head faded. He vaguely felt his body moving, but he wasn't the one doing it.

"Damn it, LaRusso. Come on. Come back."

The raging inferno in his side dulled to smoldering embers. He became aware of the rest of his body again. He could have sworn he'd fallen to his left, but he was sitting up, leaned back and slightly to the side, with his weight on his right hip and his head against the trees behind him. He felt tears drying on his cheeks, but he didn't remember how they'd gotten there. He felt a hand on his head, fingers in his hair, a thumb rubbing his left temple.

"Answer me, Daniel."

He pried his eyes open, and he found himself looking directly into blue eyes so filled with concern that he barely recognized them.

"Come on, man. Say something."

He didn't know how long Johnny had been kneeling there, talking to him, trying to get an answer from him. The look on his face said he'd been doing it for a while.

"J … Johnny … I …" His chest was heaving with every breath. His knee was throbbing with every beat of his heart. He felt something stabbing his side from the inside out.

"Take it easy." Johnny sighed deeply. Those few sounds seemed to have pacified him. "Don't talk, okay? Just breathe. That was … shit. That was rough."

Daniel swallowed hard, but there was nothing to swallow. His mouth was so dry he couldn't have spit if he'd tried.

"You're alright, LaRusso. It's okay."

He didn't want to say it. He didn't want to think it. He didn't want to admit it.

But he knew it.

"You're okay."

He'd known all along. He'd known from the second he'd felt the knife slice through his skin.

"Not okay," he whispered.

They were both pretending. It was time to stop. It was time to face the truth.

"It's fine, Daniel. You hear me?" Johnny was still rubbing his temple. It would have freaked him out if he hadn't found it as strangely comforting as he did. "You're gonna be fine."

Daniel shook his head slowly. He wasn't fine. He wasn't going to _be_ fine. Only one of them was getting off that mountain alive.

It wasn't going to be him.

"I'm _not_ … okay."

Johnny's hand stilled against his head. Then he pulled it away.

"Shut up."

"Johnny …" Talking hurt. Breathing hurt. Existing hurt. "Listen … to me …"

"Shut up!" Johnny pushed himself back and stood up. "Just shut the hell … stop it." He closed his eyes, and his hands fell to his sides. "I don't wanna hear it, so you're not gonna say it." He turned away as he shook his head. "Not happening."

Daniel's eyebrows lowered as Johnny started pacing around. His insistence that Johnny face reality was pushed aside as he was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that he was forgetting something. Something important. There was something he needed to tell him. But he couldn't remember what it was.

"You're not just gonna give up, man. We're gonna get off this mountain, and you're gonna be _fine_." He spun back around and spread his hands. "Forget the jokes. Why the hell do you think I'm _really_ doing this?" He took a step forward and waved his arm up the mountain, in the direction of the tree. "Why do you think I came after you? Why do you think I'm here?" He tapped his chest with the fingers of his left hand while he held his right hand out toward Daniel. "You think I'm doing it for fun? Huh? Think I'm doing it for me?"

Daniel shook his head again. He was trying to remember what he needed to say, but it was just out of reach. He was so preoccupied with thinking that he didn't pay any attention to the words that left his mouth. "You're not … doin' it for me … either."

Johnny froze, tilted his head, and narrowed his eyes. "Ya know what, LaRusso?" he said hotly. "Fuck you."

Daniel jumped slightly, surprised by the words. What had he said to cause that reaction? Oh. Shit. That wasn't what he'd meant to say. Not like that. He'd wanted to say that it wasn't about him, it was about the kids, and he knew that, and that was the way it should be, and he agreed. Why had it come out like that?

"No," he said, shaking his head once more. "Johnny, I …"

Johnny's pacing had increased in both speed and intensity. He was stomping all over the place, in circles and zigzags, like he needed to move but didn't know where to go. He was waving his arms and shaking his hands, like he didn't know what else to do with them. Then, for no reason that Daniel could think of, he reached into his back pocket, and he pulled out the knife.

Daniel flinched when he saw it. He couldn't stop himself. Johnny was pissed, and he had a knife – _that_ knife – in his hand. Even though he knew in his heart that he didn't need to be afraid of him, and even though the knife was closed, it still scared him.

"Fuck this thing," Johnny growled. He flung his arm out to the side, and suddenly, that knife was flying through the air, right toward Daniel's head.

Daniel ducked to his right, hissing and gasping as he did. The knife bounced off the tree behind him, and it came to rest on the one he was sitting on. He swallowed as he lifted his head and looked up. It took him a good ten seconds to get his breathing slowed down enough to talk again. Johnny was staring at his hand, but he raised his head reluctantly to look at Daniel. His expression was equal parts surprise, frustration and guilt.

"Dude …" Daniel forced out. "What … the hell …?"

"Damn it," Johnny muttered. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I … Wrong pocket." He reached into the other one, came up with Daniel's phone, and held it out to him. "Make that work," he ordered.

Daniel lifted his hand without thinking and pressed his thumb to the screen. As soon as the shattered glass lit up, Johnny pulled it away again.

"I'm getting us out of here," Johnny said. "I'm getting us help. Both of us. Because fuck this shit." He held the phone up in front of him and glared at it, waving it around and lifting it up, continuing to pace. "I'm gonna find a signal, and I'm calling the cops and an ambulance."

Johnny stumbled and almost fell, but he caught himself. That triggered something in Daniel's mind. It wasn't safe for him to be wandering around like that, but he couldn't put his finger on why. He needed to focus. He needed to concentrate. He had to remember.

"I'm getting _you_ out of here," Johnny muttered. "I promised. I'm not just gonna let you …" He shook his head and turned away again. "I'm not letting you stop me."

It was something about where they were. Something made it dangerous.

"Fuck Mike Barnes. Fuck this mountain."

The mountain! Something … something about the mountain. What? What about the mountain?

"Fuck camping. Fuck cellphones with no signal."

Johnny was moving further away, still looking at the phone, not watching where he was putting his feet. He had to stop doing that. He needed to walk back to where Daniel was. But why?

"Fuck rocks and trees and headaches and knives and knees and … fuck everything. Fuck this whole goddamned day!"

"Come … away ..." Daniel's voice was too quiet, too broken. There was no way Johnny heard him over how loud he was being.

What did Johnny need to move away from? What was he too close to? What was over there that …? He might fall. And if he fell he'd … what? What was it?

"Come back … over here." He tried again, but his voice wasn't any louder. Johnny was still storming around aimlessly, still shouting, still cussing everything he could think of that he hated at that moment. "Not … safe …"

Daniel tried to push himself up from the trees, and the fire in his side ignited again. He grabbed it and doubled over, gasping as the pain hit. And like a sudden beam of light shining through the clouds, as if the pain itself had cut its way through the fog in his brain, he remembered.

The cliff!

"Johnny!" Daniel tried to sit up again, held his hand out. "Stop!"

Johnny spun around, saw Daniel reaching for him, and took a step toward him. He turned too fast. His feet slipped backwards on the dried leaves and rocks. His legs flew out behind him. His head slammed into the ground face-first. He was out cold and on his way down the slope so fast there was no way he had time to realize anything was wrong.

"No!"

* * *

Robby had been working in the service department at LaRusso Auto off and on for the past few months. He'd helped with oil changes, he was learning how to do tune-ups, and he could vacuum a floorboard with the best of them. He knew where all the tools were. He knew how to find every part they kept on-hand in the storeroom. He'd even spent a few days playing around with the computer and learning to write estimates for the insurance companies. The only thing he'd never been allowed to do was operate the lift.

By the time he had the Q7 positioned right, secured, and in the air, he knew why.

"Is it always that hard?"

Robby took his hand off the button, smiled shyly, and walked toward the car. He ducked under it, running his hand along the bright yellow arms, checking to make sure the frame was correctly positioned on them. "No," he admitted. "Usually, they just drive them on and raise them up."

Miguel had followed him toward the car, but he seemed reluctant to go under it. "And it's not going anywhere?" he asked, rubbing his chest nervously. "It's not gonna fall?"

"No." Robby inspected the left side of the frame closely, looking for any scuffs or scrapes that may have resulted from their first attempt at putting it up. He held his breath until he was satisfied there were none. "That was totally my fault. I didn't pull it close enough to …"

"So, they're not supposed to go up on two wheels like that?"

"No." He shook his head, patted the frame like an old friend, and walked out from under the car again. "And we're not gonna tell Mr. LaRusso that his did, okay?"

Miguel grinned. "Sure. Whatever you say."

Robby slapped his hands together to dust them off, then brushed them on his jeans. "Okay. Let's get this done. Tires are over there." He gestured at the back wall, at the half-dozen racks filled with tires of all different sizes. Miguel nodded as he spoke. "I'll get the size off these." He patted one of the slashed tires that they'd need to remove. "And I'll go get the lug wrench. Now, when it comes to taking the wheels off and getting the new tires down, I'll need your …"

"Hey, Cuz!"

Robby froze. Miguel looked at him questioningly.

"Where ya at, Cuz?"

 _'Fuck. Louie.'_

Robby closed his eyes, and his mind started scrambling for an explanation he could give. They were stuck. They were in the open, in the service bay at the dealership, outside of business hours, and they were alone. There was nowhere they could hide. And even if there was, it wouldn't have mattered, because once that man saw the Audi, he wouldn't give up until he'd found the person he'd come looking for.

"Why didn't we close the damn door?" Robby muttered.

Miguel, still confused as to what was going on, just shrugged. He didn't look worried. But why would he be?

Robby had told him he worked there and was allowed to be there. He said he had the security code, so obviously they trusted him. And it wasn't like they were stealing; they were putting tires Mr. LaRusso owned on his own car. He knew that's what Mr. LaRusso would have done in his position. They weren't the ones who slashed the tires. It wasn't their fault Mike had. They had to change them so they could get back.

What other choice did they have?

"Saw ya drive in, and I just … look, don't hit me, okay?" He was getting closer. "I know I'm not supposed to be here. I know you're mad. And, ya know, maybe this time, I kinda deserve it, but, I mean, come on! I'm your family, right? And after what he did to us, I just …"

He rounded the corner of the service desk, and his eyes widened in surprise. He was expecting to see Mr. LaRusso. He was expecting to see the Q7, since he said he'd seen it drive in. But he wasn't expecting it to be on the rack. He definitely wasn't expecting to see Robby and some kid he didn't know standing next to it.

"Robby." His voice was equal parts surprise and suspicion.

"Louie."

Miguel glanced at him and rubbed his chest again, obviously picking up on the tension and anger in Robby's voice. He stepped to his side, putting himself right behind Robby's left shoulder.

"Whatta you doin' here?" Louie asked. "Where's my cousin?"

"He's not here."

Louie smirked, and his entire attitude changed. He'd obviously been trying to corner Mr. LaRusso so he could weasel and con his way back into his good graces. But that wasn't going to happen. So instead of the cowering, groveling ass kisser he always was when either Mr. or Mrs. LaRusso might hear him, he became the cocky, arrogant pain in the ass that he was to everyone else.

Louie tilted his chin and fixed Miguel with a look that was probably meant to be intimidating but which just came off as nosy and annoying.

"Who's this guy?"

"Louie, Miguel Diaz. Miguel …" He pursed his lips and gestured across the room with his hand. "Louie LaRusso."

Miguel's eyebrows shot up, but he didn't say a word.

"Pleasure to meet ya, Miguel Diaz." He smirked again. "Whatchya doin' here, Robby? And how'd ya get in?"

Louie walked forward slowly, standing straighter and gaining confidence as he did. He thought he had the upper hand. He thought he'd just busted them doing something bad and possibly illegal. If either Mr. or Mrs. LaRusso ever found out that he'd gotten in, then they'd ask him how he'd gotten the code, and he'd have to tell them. As it was, he'd been incredibly lucky that Mr. LaRusso hadn't gotten around to changing it, like he'd been talking about doing all week.

His brain spun as he tried to figure out a way to talk them out of the massive trouble they were about to be in. If he didn't come up with something soon, they were so screwed. Not only would Mrs. LaRusso be called down, and not only would the police probably be called, but there'd be no way they could make it back to the mountain. And that meant his dad and Mr. LaRusso would …

"How do you think we got in?" He was only stalling for time while he thought up his real course of action, but it wasn't hard to sound irritated. The hard part was not letting Louie see just how desperate he was for him to leave. "I know the code."

"They gave it to you?" The amount of disbelief in Louie's voice matched what showed on his face.

He shrugged. "They trust me. Unlike some people here."

As the words passed his lips, he realized he knew exactly how to take control of the situation and make Louie walk away.

"Why would they trust you? You're just some kid. I'm his family."

Robby tipped his head and stepped forward. He knew what he was about to say was going to shake Louie's world. It was also going to bring Miguel into the conversation, and that would flip the advantage from Louie to the two of them.

"Maybe because I'm not dumb enough to drop Mr. LaRusso's name while I'm setting my dad's car on fire."

Louie's eyes widened, and Robby knew he'd hit the target he'd been aiming for. He'd always thought the whole idea of people's jaws hitting the floor was ridiculous, but in that moment, if it hadn't been attached, Louie's would have. "Your … wait. That Lawrence guy? That asshole who disrespected _my_ family?" Louie tapped his own chest and took two steps forward. "That guy's your dad?"

Robby smirked and nodded. "Yeah. He is."

"Wait," Miguel said behind him. "Wait a minute, that … that was you?" He stepped forward, holding his right hand against his chest and pointing his left hand at Louie. "You're the dick who set Sensei's car on fire?"

"He is," Robby said.

"You asshole!" Miguel took another step, a much more angry and threatening one, and Robby put his left arm out to hold him back. "Do you know what you almost did? My mom, my Yaya, all the families and kids that live there, you …" He was shaking as he spoke, and his hand went back to his chest again. "You could have killed all of us! You could've burned my whole building down!"

Louie took a step back. "Hey, I didn't mean for that to happen! I was there, yeah, but it wasn't me! I even told them, but, then that guy came out, and he, ya know, he kicked their asses, and they …"

"Good!" Miguel spat.

"Listen." Louie held his hands out in front of him. "We're gettin' off topic here. Just forget about that whole car on fire thing, okay? It's in the past. Can't change it. But you're still not supposed to be here."

"Neither are you," Robby pointed out.

"Just tell me what you're doin'. Because from here, it looks bad. And I like you, Robby. But I'd do anything for my cousin. And if you're doin' anything that's gonna hurt him, I'll …"

"What's it look like we're doing?" He gestured angrily at the Audi with the back of his hand. "Mr. LaRusso needed new tires."

"Why?"

"Because they're flat, dumbass. Why do you think?"

"So he sent you to get them?" Louie stepped forward again. "He just handed you the keys to his car?"

"Yes. He did." The irritation in his voice had been real from the beginning, but there was no more need to fake sincerity. He wasn't lying. "How would I change the tires if I didn't have the car?" Strengthened by the knowledge that he was about to play his final hand, he took several steps toward Louie, who backed away. "How would I get it here if I didn't drive it? And how would I be driving it if he hadn't given me the keys?"

"Well, I'm gonna …" Louie stuttered and sputtered again, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket. "I'm gonna call Daniel and ask him."

"You can try," Robby said. "He won't answer." That was completely true. Neither his dad nor Mr. LaRusso had answered any of the half dozen times he and Miguel had tried to call them.

"He's in the mountains," Miguel threw in. "There's no signal up there."

"Then I'll call Amanda!"

Miguel looked slightly worried about that. He may not know that they weren't actually allowed to be there, but he knew better than to want Mrs. LaRusso to find out what was going on. As far as Robby was concerned, the longer they could protect her from knowing anything was wrong, the better. She'd get scared and worried, and there was no need to do that to her. They were going to fix it, anyway.

Robby shook his head and shrugged. That was all he'd needed Louie to say. It was time to throw his final card and bluff his ass off. "So do it." He ignored the wide-eyed look Miguel shot in his direction. "Call her. And while you're telling her all about this horrible, terrible thing I'm doing for Mr. LaRusso …"

He reached into his pocket for his phone, and his eyes widened slightly when he realized he didn't have it. He knew he'd had it on the mountain. His dad had called him on it, but he didn't remember what he'd done with it after that. Miguel had used his phone to make all the calls from the car, because he'd been driving. But the success of his plan hinged entirely on him having that phone in his hand. If he didn't, then …

He felt a tap on his shoulder, and he turned his head. Miguel held his missing phone out to him with a sheepish grin.

"I'm gonna call the cops," Robby announced, taking his phone from Miguel's hand. "And report you for criminal trespassing."

Louie froze.

Robby's words came faster and faster as the anger he'd been holding back started to pour out. "Because you set my dad's car on fire, and you almost burned Miguel's building down, and you almost killed a whole bunch of people with Mr. LaRusso's name in your mouth, and Mr. LaRusso fired you, and Mrs. LaRusso banned you from their house, and he banned you from here, and you're not allowed on their property at all."

He finished off his rant by lifting the undialed phone to his ear.

"Alright!" Louie threw his hands up in surrender. Robby didn't lower his phone, but Louie did. "Alright. Easy, buddy. Kiddo. There's no need for that. I'll just … I'll go. Just …" Louie backed away, toward the open service bay doors. "I'm going." He turned around and started walking faster.

Robby and Miguel followed right behind him.

Just before Louie walked out, he turned his head and said, "Can you just, ya know, tell my cousin I miss him? And I wanna talk to him? Please?"

Robby shrugged. "Sure." He pulled the phone away from his face and pushed the button to darken the screen before Louie saw he hadn't dialed anyone. "If I remember."

"Thanks. And, Robby, I just … I'm sorry. About your dad's car." Robby shrugged again. "Tell Daniel I'm sorry, okay? And, ya know, take care of him. Okay?"

"I plan to."

Louie walked out, and Robby pushed the button on the wall. The glass garage doors closed behind him, locking him outside. He and Miguel stood there together, watching him walk back to his car, get in, and drive away.

It was only after the car was out of sight that Robby released the breath he'd been holding, and his shoulders sagged.

"That … was close," he said softly.

"Yeah," Miguel agreed. "But you handled him great. You're really good at that."

"Good at what?"

"I believed every word you said, and I know what's really going on." Robby glanced over to see him rubbing at his chest again, but smiling. "You're really good at that lying thing."

Robby snorted. "You have no idea." He spun on his heel, slapping Miguel on the arm with the back of his hand as he passed him. "Come on," he said. "We need to get moving. I'll need your help getting these tires down and changed. I don't wanna pull my shoulder out again."

He shuffled to a stop when he realized what he'd just said. He hadn't meant that like it sounded. He wasn't even thinking about how he'd popped it out the first time, or who'd pulled it out the second.

"I mean …"

"It's okay," Miguel said. He was actually smiling when Robby turned to look at him. "I deserve that." He huffed. "No. I deserve more than that. A lot more. So, if that's the only thing you ever say or do to me about it, I'm getting off easy."

Robby hadn't expected that reaction, but it was nice to hear. Maybe there was hope for them after all.

* * *

Daniel had heard people talk about things like time stopping, the world moving in slow motion, and everything happening too fast to keep up with all at the same time. He'd never experienced it himself. He'd always thought it was just people being dramatic, talking up situations to make them seem more dire. He'd never believed it could really happen.

Until it happened to him.

Until he sat on a pile of trees, barely able to breathe, to say nothing of move, completely powerless to stop Johnny from smashing through brush and ricocheting off trees and tumbling like a ragdoll down the side of a mountain toward a 30-foot cliff. Until he watched Johnny's back slam into a tree so hard that he bent in half backwards, watched his right side hit a boulder so hard that he swore he heard bones snap, watched his left shoulder collide with another tree so hard it flipped him over and spun him around. Until his brain for some insane reason started seeing the mountain as the world's biggest, and most deadly, pinball machine, with Johnny as the ball.

Until all he could do was scream.

"Johnny!"

 _'It's my fault.'_

 _'Yeah, right. Like you walked over and pushed him.'_

Time crashed back into place around him, and he gasped in a breath.

That last tree had almost certainly done some damage, but it had also done some good. Johnny had ended up on his back, just a few inches from the forked trunk. His feet were pointed at the edge of the cliff, which was less than ten feet from him. But his forward progress had stopped almost completely. He was still sliding, but he was moving very, very slowly.

 _'I_ _ **let**_ _him fall. I didn't tell him. I didn't warn him.'_

Daniel closed his eyes and let his head fall forward. He gave himself a few seconds to breathe before he opened them again.

 _'I have to help him.'_

 _'How exactly are you gonna do that?'_

He started pushing himself up. The first two attempts failed miserably, because his arms didn't want to hold him. He didn't have any idea what he was going to do, but he had to do something. He wasn't going to just sit there and let Johnny fall off the damn mountain.

 _'How are you gonna stop him?'_

 _'I can't let him die! I won't!'_

He tried again, using both his arms and his right leg, and that worked better, but he still couldn't get all the way up. The splint was stopping him. He couldn't leverage himself up far enough to compensate for not being able to bend his knee. He glanced around, looking for something – anything – he could use as a crutch to push himself to his feet. There was nothing he could see within reach. There was a limb to his left that might work, but it was at the other end of the pile, and he didn't know if he could scoot himself over that far.

His eyes fell on the knife. It was still sitting on the trees beside him. He wanted to pull back from it, grab it and throw it, get it the hell away from him, but … maybe …

 _'Maybe what?'_

 _'Just maybe.'_

He looked from the knife, to his leg, to the strips of cloth holding the sticks in place on either side of it.

 _'You're not.'_

 _'I think I am.'_

It was a bad idea. It was a dumb idea. It had already gone all the way out once, and judging by the way it felt, odds were good that he'd torn at least one tendon, if not more. Walking on it without the splint would completely destroy whatever was left. It would never hold his weight.

 _'Even if it does, it'll never work again. You know that.'_

 _'What does that matter? I'm already d...'_

 _'He told you to shut up about that.'_

The pain in his side flared up again, and he pressed his hands against it. He bit his lip, panted through it, and leaned to his right to relieve some of the pressure. Then he shook his head and tried to pick out the best path to follow to get to Johnny.

 _'Odds aren't exactly in your favor, ya know.'_

 _'Yeah. I know.'_

Best case scenario would see him throwing himself from tree to rock in a barely controlled free-fall on purpose; worst case scenario would see him going down the same way Johnny had.

 _'Don't be an idiot, LaRusso. Don't do it.'_

 _'I'm gonna save him.'_

He heard a scuffling noise, and he looked up.

 _'Or die trying.'_

 _'Or that.'_

Johnny had moved again. He was a few inches closer to the edge than he had been.

 _'This is gonna suck.'_

 _'Yes. It is. But I've gotta get to him.'_

"Fuck … this whole … goddamned day."

All fear of the knife vanished. He snatched it up, flipped it open, and started cutting.

* * *

"You're sure they're on right?" Miguel's voice had changed as they'd been working.

Robby rolled his eyes and pushed the button to lower the car back to the floor. "Yes."

"The nuts are tight enough?" His voice was quieter, and he sounded like he was out of breath.

"Yes."

They still hadn't talked about their shit, but that was okay. If they'd gone down that path, they might have started fighting again, and neither of them was willing to do that. They both knew none of it was half as important as what they needed to do, so they'd let it be. They still weren't exactly friends, but they weren't exactly enemies anymore, either. They understood each other. He had a feeling his dad and Mr. LaRusso would be proud of them for that.

"They're not gonna fall off?"

Then Miguel had gotten bizarrely obsessed with the wheels falling off the car. And that was annoying as hell.

"Because I've heard of people changing tires and not tightening them enough and …"

"Miguel!" The car settled on the concrete, and a few seconds later, the lift arms did the same. Robby took his hand off the button and turned around, intending to tell Miguel what he thought about him questioning his ability to change some damn tires, but the second he saw his face, he changed his mind. "Hey. What's wrong?"

Miguel's face was red, he was panting, and he had his right hand pressed in a fist against his chest. He leaned forward, then he stood straight and pushed his shoulders back, but they crumpled and fell forward again almost immediately.

"Miguel!" Robby ran to him and grabbed his arms. "What's wrong? What's going on?"

"Breathe." It was less a word than it was a desperate gasp for air. "Can't … breathe …"

Robby's heart jumped into his throat, but it only stayed there for a second. He'd seen it before. He'd never dealt with it himself, but if it was what he thought it was, he'd watched Anoush do it once. And he'd watched Mr. LaRusso take care of him.

 _"It's an asthma attack. He can't breathe. Robby, I need you to listen to me."_

"Asthma?" he asked. He didn't get an answer. "Miguel, do you have asthma?"

He got a frantic, rapid nod in response. "Stress … induced …"

That made sense. The day they were having qualified.

"Okay. Here. Sit down." Robby helped him to the floor, though Miguel was so preoccupied with trying to force air into his lungs that he didn't so much sit down as he collapsed. Robby thought back to the first thing Mr. LaRusso had told Anoush to do in the break room that day.

 _"Open your chest, Anoush. Get your arms up."_

He knelt down in front of Miguel, took his wrists in his hands, and lifted his arms. "Put them behind your head," he said. "It's supposed to open your chest up. That makes it easier, right?"

Miguel nodded, a bit more slowly than before, and he did as Robby had suggested. He stopped panting, but his chest was still heaving.

"Is that better?" he asked hopefully.

"Need … inhaler."

"Where is it?" He reached into the pocket of Miguel's hoodie, thinking he'd keep it somewhere easy to get to, but it wasn't there. "Do you have it with you? Is it in the car? Did you leave it on the mountain?"

Miguel shook his head. "Sensei … threw it … away."

Robby's blood froze. "He did _what_?"

"Said … don't … need it."

Robby dropped his arms and head in frustration. "Miguel, I know you really like my dad, but sometimes, he's really damn stupid." He rubbed his hands on his thighs and pushed himself to his feet. "Stay there. I'll be right back."

He ran from the service area to the showroom as fast as he could, and he ran straight to Anoush's desk. He knew exactly what he was looking for, and he knew exactly where it was.

 _"He's got an inhaler in his desk, Robby. Top left drawer. It's red plastic with a white cap. Run and get it for me."_

Miguel looked and sounded almost as bad as Anoush had that day, and the inhaler hadn't worked for him. Mr. LaRusso had ended up taking him to the hospital.

God, he hoped it helped Miguel.

He grabbed the letter opener out of Anoush's pen holder, and he started prying at the lock on the center drawer. "Sorry, Anoush," he said to no one. "I'll make it up to you. But you're about to save a kid's life." The cylinder popped open, and he pulled the drawer out. It was there, right in the middle of the drawer, exactly where he'd known it would be. He grabbed it and sprinted from the showroom so quickly that he didn't even close the drawer.

"Miguel!" he shouted as he ran back to him. "I got it. I got it." Remembering again what Mr. LaRusso had done, he shook the inhaler as he slid to his knees at Miguel's side. He didn't know what that did, but he figured it was important. "Here." He took the cap off and pressed it into Miguel's hand. "Can you do it? Do you need help?"

Miguel shook his head as he raised it to his lips. His hand was shaking so badly that Robby was worried he wasn't going to be able to hold it.

"Here." He wrapped one hand around Miguel's to keep it still, and he put the other on the back of his neck to help him stay sitting up. "There ya go."

Miguel exhaled, then pressed down on the metal canister as he drew in a breath. A few seconds later, he did it again. A few seconds after that, he did it once more. Then he closed his eyes, and his head fell back against the wall. Robby took the inhaler from him and sat back on his heels.

"Is it working?" Robby asked. Anoush had used it four or five times that day, but it hadn't done him any good.

 _"Too much, Anoush. That's too many. Let's get you to the hospital."_

He was more than slightly worried about that same thing happening to Miguel. "You feeling better?"

Miguel nodded silently.

Robby put the cap back on, put it in his pocket, stood up, and walked to the water cooler. He grabbed a cup, and he almost knocked the whole stack over. After he'd stopped them all from falling, he almost dropped the one in his hand. He still didn't notice that he was trembling until he was trying to hold it still enough to fill it.

"Robby?" Miguel's voice was so soft he barely heard it, but it didn't sound as desperate as it had. That had to be a good sign.

He put the cup down on top of the cooler, took a deep breath of his own, stared at his hands, and willed them to stop shaking. When they didn't, he laid them flat on the base and leaned into them. Then he closed his eyes and took another.

"Robby?" There was a little worry creeping into his voice that time.

"Yeah!" he called back. He stood up straight, rolled his shoulders, and rubbed his hands together. "Right here." He picked the cup up and turned back around. "I'm comin'." He jogged across the room, careful not to spill, and he knelt down again. "Here," he said, putting the cup in Miguel's hands. "Got ya some water."

Miguel was still shaking, but it wasn't as bad as it had been before. Robby helped him lift the cup and tip it to his lips, so he wouldn't dump it all over himself. Miguel gulped from it like he was dying of thirst. Anoush had done the same thing.

 _"Don't drink so fast, Anoush. Slow down."_

"Slow down," Robby said, lowering the cup and pulling it back a bit. "Don't wanna choke on it."

Robby had been more than a little freaked out after watching Anoush's attack. He'd spent the next several hours wandering around in a kind of numbed stupor. It had been so bad. He'd been so scared. He'd never seen anyone do that before. And it had come out of nowhere. One minute, Anoush had been fine and joking about a customer he'd had that morning, and the next, he'd almost stopped breathing.

After he'd gotten back from the hospital, Mr. LaRusso had noticed Robby's odd behavior and pulled him aside.

 _"He's okay," he'd said. "I dropped him off at home on my way back. He's fine."_

 _"Is that … normal? For him?"_

 _Mr. LaRusso shook his head. "No. He doesn't have attacks like that very often. When he does, they're scary, and sometimes, he needs our help. We have to take care of him. That's all."_

 _Robby nodded. "It's good that you were there. When he started, I … I didn't know what was happening to him. I didn't know what to do."_

 _"And that's fine. No one would have expected you to. But, listen, Robby, I want you to remember everything you saw today, okay? Everything I did."_

 _Robby tilted his head in confusion. "Why?"_

 _"Because you might need it someday. You need to know what to do if he has another one and you are the only one with him."_

 _"How could that happen?" he asked. "I'm only with him here. And you and Mrs. L are always here."_

 _"Well, you never know. It could happen to him, or it could happen to someone else. What if it's another friend of yours, or someone you don't even know? What if you're alone with someone who needs help? Wouldn't you like to know how to help them?"_

Robby raised his eyes to the ceiling and smiled.

Miguel coughed, pulling his attention back to him.

"Hey," Robby said with a smile. "You okay? Is it gonna work?"

Miguel nodded.

"Do you need me to take you to the hospital?"

"No," Miguel answered. "I'm okay, I just … just need a minute. To catch my breath." They both smiled at the accidental joke. "Literally."

Robby took the empty paper cup from Miguel's hand and wadded it up. As he stood to throw it away, Miguel leaned back against the wall.

"How'd you know?" Miguel asked after him. "What to do? How'd you … know that?"

Robby tossed the cup into the trash can. He put his hands in his pockets and shrugged as he turned back around. "Mr. LaRusso taught me."

Miguel looked surprised. "He did?"

Robby nodded. "Yeah." He smiled fondly at the memory and dropped his head. "Funny thing. He thinks being able to breathe right is pretty important."

The words took him back to the mountain, to their aborted lesson on breathing. He remembered how wonderful everything had been then, how perfect it had seemed, how calm and balanced they'd both been, and how much he'd been looking forward to their day. He glanced up at the clock on the wall. How could that have possibly been only four hours ago? What the hell had happened? How had it all gone so wrong so fast? How had their weekend camping trip turned into his nightmare?

It was like they were stuck in an episode of _Black Mirror_.

"Yeah," Miguel said. "It kinda is."

He bit his lip, lifted his head slowly, and looked at Miguel from under his bangs.

"I gotta get back there, Miguel," he said. "I gotta get back to him." He closed his eyes as the nightmare flashed through his mind again. The darkness. The pain. The blood. "I can't let him … I can't lose him. I can't lose either of them. I can't …"

"Robby," Miguel said softly.

Robby opened his eyes and looked at him.

"You won't," Miguel said. "We won't."

He nodded, pressed his back against the wall, and leaned there for a few seconds. Then he slid down it to sit on the floor at Miguel's side. He stared at the concrete in front of them. "Do you think …?"

He couldn't ask the question. If he did, that would make everything he was afraid of real. And it couldn't be real.

"Think what?"

Robby pulled his knees up and laid his arms across them. He dropped his head and his eyes. "Do you really think they're okay?"

"Of course." Miguel sounded optimistic, but it was hollow. It sounded fake, like he was putting it on just for Robby's sake. He stretched his legs out in front of him and shrugged. "You heard them. Mr. LaRusso said he was fine, and Sensei said they'd be right behind us."

Robby looked at him without turning his head. "Yeah, well, they also lied to us."

Miguel shrugged again, and then he lightly swatted Robby's knee with the back of his hand. "I'm sure they're fine," he said. "I bet they're almost off the mountain by now, right? Probably just trying to get away from each other."

"Yeah," Robby said dully. He didn't believe a word either of them was saying. "Trying not to kill each other. Annoying the hell out of each other the whole time."

"Sure. You know how they are." The false brightness in his voice was fading. "I'm sure they're fighting, and arguing, and …" Miguel trailed off. He didn't believe it anymore, either.

Silence took over for a moment. Robby let it go on until he couldn't stand it. He had to say it. He had to hear it.

"Miguel?"

"Yeah?"

They were both staring straight ahead at nothing, equally lost in their thoughts.

"Tell me they're gonna be okay."

Miguel leaned his head against the wall and rolled it to the side. Then he smiled. "They're gonna be okay." That didn't sound fake, but it did sound hopeful.

"You promise?"

He didn't know why he asked that. He didn't know why he asked Miguel that, of all people. But somehow, even after everything that had happened between them the week before, with all that had happened to them that day, with everything they'd done and said, he knew that Miguel, of all people, understood.

They were just kids. They didn't know how to deal with stuff like that, because stuff like that didn't happen to kids. People didn't go sneaking around on mountains, hitting people in the head with tree branches, getting people who were afraid of them to go into the woods with them. Fathers and teachers didn't run into dangerous situations and then just disappear like that. Nightmares weren't real, and they didn't come true. It just didn't happen.

How the hell had it happened?

"Yeah," Miguel said. "I promise."

* * *

It was the most difficult forty feet Daniel had ever walked in his life. Of course, he wasn't so much walking as he was lurching from large object to large object, throwing himself into them to halt his momentum at random and bone-jarring intervals. He lost his footing twice, and he almost overshot one of the small trees he'd aimed himself at, but he managed to make it to that last tree in more or less one piece. That was all that mattered. And by the time he got there, he'd almost forgotten what it was costing him.

Everything but the pain. He couldn't forget that no matter how hard he tried.

He pressed his back and palms against the tree and slid down it, keeping his left leg straight out in front of him as he went. It had already far surpassed what he'd expected of it, but it was done. It wasn't going to hold him up anymore. Bending it deeply enough to sit on the ground was completely out of the question. His right leg and arms were shaking when he finally made it all the way down. He gave himself another few seconds to breathe before he set about doing whatever it was he was going to do.

 _'And what are you gonna do?'_

 _'Haven't figured that out yet.'_

He turned his head to the left and looked at Johnny. He'd slipped again while Daniel was making his way down to him. His head was about a foot below the tree and less than a foot to the right of it. His left arm was out to his side and slightly above his head. His hand was only a few inches away.

"Johnny? Can you … hear me?" He didn't get a response.

 _'You expected him to answer you?'_

 _'Will you shut up?'_

Johnny had hit his head hard enough to both knock himself out and bust it open again. There was blood running down his forehead, into his hair and over his eye. His nose was bleeding. He had some small scratches on his face that probably wouldn't do more than sting a bit. His shirt had slipped up, and there were dozens of scrapes and cuts of varying sizes visible on his chest – some deep, most shallow, almost all of them oozing red. Daniel couldn't see his right side to check if the boulder he'd bounced off had done any damage. He couldn't see his left shoulder, either, because his shirt was bunched up around it, but he was almost positive it had been hurt.

It was Johnny's back that worried him the most. He'd slammed into that first tree with so much force, and spines weren't meant to bend that far backwards. He couldn't see it, and he wasn't sure how he was going to check it, but he knew he'd need to.

 _'If you're gonna do something, you better do it soon.'_

 _'I know that.'_

Unconscious people with head and back injuries weren't supposed to be moved. That was rule number one. But he wasn't going to leave him where he was. He knew more than enough about dislocated joints to know that pulling on that left arm wasn't a good idea, either, but he didn't have a choice. It was the only one he could reach. If it was out of place, or if he pulled it out, he'd just put it back in.

"Got an … idea. Stay there … a second."

 _'Of all the dumb things you've said today, that is quite possibly the dumbest.'_

 _'Shut up.'_

Daniel was going to have to pull him up, drag him away from the edge, but he'd have to anchor himself somehow. If he didn't, he'd end up sliding down, too.

 _'And what's your track record with_ _ **not**_ _falling down cliffs?'_

 _'Shut. The fuck. Up!'_

He glanced around again, and he smiled when he saw the split in the tree. The gap between the two branches of the trunk wasn't large, but it should be wide enough for him to hook an arm through. It would have to be his left. He had to have his stronger arm free, and trying to use his left arm while lying on his back would be impossible. That meant all he had to do was lie down. On his stomach.

 _'You sure you wanna do that?'_

 _'Want to? No. Have to.'_

He scooted down slowly, carefully, and rolled over just as gingerly. He winced and pulled back when something stabbed him in the side. Then he reached down, grabbed the small rock he found there, and tossed it away. He lay back down, reached his left arm through the fork in the tree, and wrapped it around the trunk in front of him. He pressed his shoulder against it for a little extra support.

 _'It's gonna hurt like hell.'_

 _'Yeah. No shit.'_

"Okay," he muttered as his arm settled into place. He took a deep breath, turned his head, and slowly walked his right hand toward Johnny. "Okay, Johnny. 'm here." He wrapped his fingers around Johnny's forearm just above his wrist. "I gotcha. Gonna … pull you … up now." He knew Johnny didn't hear a word he was saying, but the silence was driving him crazy. And talking to an unconscious Johnny was better than the conversation he was having with the imaginary one in his head. "Just … gonna …"

He hauled Johnny toward him with his right arm as he pulled himself closer to the tree with his left. It did hurt like hell. But he clenched his teeth, groaned and kept doing it. For a few seconds, it seemed to be working. Johnny's head and shoulders were turning slowly, almost as slowly as he'd been sliding. "'kay," he said. "I … gotcha. Come … on …"

Apparently, the spot Johnny was lying was flatter than the rest of the ground around him. It had to have been the reason he wasn't sliding very much. Because the second he moved out of it, everything went to shit.

Daniel's arm shifted further down in the fork, and he felt it get pinned. If it hadn't been for Johnny's jacket, he was sure the bark would have ripped it open. Then Johnny started moving again, very quickly, but in the wrong direction. Daniel had just enough time to tighten his grip on his arm before Johnny's entire body lurched down. Suddenly, instead of Johnny's hand being next to the tree, it was below it. Instead of a horizontal grasp on Johnny's arm, he had a vertical one. And instead of having some slack he could use to his advantage, both of their arms were stretched as far as they could go.

Daniel's feet flew to the side, followed by the rest of his body. Rocks and sticks dug into his side as he got dragged out and around. There was nothing he could do to stop it. That was it. That was the end. That was how they were both going to die. They were going to Butch and Sundance off the side of the mountain.

His arm dropped again, deeper into the fork. The bark did slice into his skin that time, even through the jacket. He felt the sting of the cuts, and he felt blood running down the inside of it. It was starting to run down his stomach, too. He couldn't do anything about either of those things. He barely even noticed them.

He was too busy being ripped apart.

His back arched, he threw his head back as far as he could, and he screamed.

His mind flashed to the Stretch Armstrong he'd had when he was a kid. He'd had it for years, and he'd loved that thing. But he'd pulled and tugged and yanked on it so many times and so hard that he'd torn its arm off. It had ended up a deflated rubber body and a puddle of corn syrup on his bedroom floor.

He knew exactly how Stretch felt.

The pressure on his arms was incredible and immense. It was vibrating down his stretched and strained muscles, straight to his side. His feet scrambled for purchase, but there was nothing he could brace them against. Tears filled his eyes, clouding his vision. They rolled down his cheeks, and he let them fall.

 _'So. This is going well.'_

He wasn't even going to answer.

"Fuck!" He grit his teeth and pressed his forehead to the ground. Johnny's arm shifted in his hand, and he tightened his fingers.

And then everything stilled. Everything stopped moving. Including them.

They weren't exactly what Daniel would call safe, but they were stable. There was absolutely no chance in hell he'd be able to pull Johnny back up from that position, but they weren't falling. And so long as Daniel's arm stayed wedged in the fork and he maintained his grip on Johnny's arm, they wouldn't.

He tightened his hold again, turned his head, and rested it on the ground. The pain was excruciating, but there was nothing he could do to make it go away. He'd just have to deal with it. He concentrated on his breathing, in and out, as deeply as he could manage. He focused his mind away from his body and toward its task. He only had to do one thing. He only had one job.

"Don't let go, Daniel," he whispered. "Don't let go." His mind shut down. His body went on autopilot. His hand squeezed Johnny's arm so tightly his fingers almost touched. His eyes fell closed.

"Don't … let … go …"


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

It was pain that woke him up.

Whether it was pain from his head, his back, his shoulder or his ribs, he didn't know. Maybe it was one of them. Maybe it was some of them. Maybe it was all of them. But it was definitely pain.

Because he hurt. Everywhere.

"Wh' ...?" That probably sounded pitiful, and he was glad he could barely hear it. He coughed, swallowed, and tried again. "Wh't h'ppen'd?"

No one answered him. That wasn't right. He could hear a voice, not far away. Someone was talking. There was a cadence to it, almost a beat, a repetition of the same sounds over and over again. But it was so faint he couldn't make out what it was saying. What _he_ was saying. There was only one person it could be.

"LaRu ..." He coughed again, opened his eyes, and found himself looking up at the sky. There was nothing between him and it, and only a few high clouds drifted by to break the expanse of blue. "LaRusso?" The more he talked, the stronger his voice got. "Wh't ... the hell ... happen'd?" He looked around slowly, moving his eyes but not his head, wincing at the spikes of agony the movement sent through his skull.

He was flat on his back on the ground. He wasn't where he remembered being, but he had no idea how he'd gotten where he was. The aches and pains that assaulted him from almost every part of his body told him he was probably better off not knowing. There was something weird about his left arm, though. It was above his head, for one thing, and it hurt like hell. But the strangest part was that it felt like there was something wrapped around it.

He tried to lift it, and he wasn't surprised when he couldn't. He tried to tug it down to his side, but instead of pulling it loose from whatever held it, that whatever-it-was got tighter. And the soft, repeating voice above him got a bit louder. He concentrated on it, tried to make out what was being said, but he still couldn't understand it.

Bracing himself for the misery he knew it would cause, he closed his eyes and slowly turned his head to the left and up. He wanted to see what had hold of him. He raised his eyebrows, and his eyelids lifted slowly. Once he saw what was holding him so tightly, his eyebrows slid back down.

"LaRusso?"

Daniel's head was down, his eyes were closed, and his lips were moving. None of those things changed when Johnny said his name.

"Daniel?"

 _'Alive and in the flesh.'_

Daniel was holding him, gripping his arm so tightly there were indents in Johnny's skin around the sides of his hand. Johnny didn't know how long he'd been doing that, but it didn't look like he planned on letting go any time soon.

 _'What is he doing?'_

 _'Do you feel the angle you're laying at?'_

 _'What?'_

 _'Maybe you should look down.'_

 _'What?!'_

Johnny tipped his head up so he could look at the rest of his body: his chest, his legs, his feet, and ... oh.

"Cliff," he muttered, slowly dropping back to the ground. "There's a god ... damned ... cliff ..." The ground beneath him sloped toward it, and his feet were less than a foot from the edge of it. Daniel had stopped him from going over it. Somehow.

 _'He saved your ass.'_

 _'Yeah. Kinda see that.'_

He gave himself a few moments to process the situation before he did anything else. His entire body was telling him motion was a bad idea. His back and right side were screaming at him, and the front of his left shoulder was on fire. He couldn't even begin to describe what his head felt like. All of that was only going to get worse if he did something stupid. Like move. Or breathe. Or think.

 _'You have to get up.'_

Johnny knew the voice was right. He did have to get up. He was no lightweight, and Daniel's hand around his wrist was the only thing stopping him from going over the edge. He didn't know how Daniel was keeping himself from sliding, but whatever it was, it was working. Unfortunately, since Daniel's feet were behind him, in the middle of the empty slope, and braced by absolutely nothing, that also meant he was holding Johnny's entire weight with just his arms. There was no way that was good for him.

 _'Good for him? You're tearing him in half.'_

 _'Shit.'_

He took a deep breath and rolled slowly to his left, intending to pull his arm down so he could crawl up. Daniel's response to that movement was to tighten his grip and speak louder.

"Donleggo. Donleggo." Slow. Slurred and drawn out. The same three words. Over and over again.

 _'Don't think he's letting go.'_

 _'No, really?'_

That was going to make things difficult.

"LaRusso," he said. "I'm awake. I can get up. But I need my arm."

Daniel was at least semi-conscious because he was talking, still holding on, and reacting to Johnny moving, but he didn't answer him.

 _'Daniel can't come to the phone right now.'_

 _'Funny. Asshole.'_

"You ... check out for a while, LaRusso?" he asked. "Don't blame ya ... ya know. I would ... too. Or maybe, I ... guess I kinda did, huh?" He finished rolling to his stomach. The twist of his shoulder was excruciating, and the way Daniel groaned said it wasn't exactly pleasant for him, either. But still, the guy wasn't letting go. Johnny didn't want to do what he was about to do, but if Daniel was going to hold on to him like that, he didn't have a choice.

"This ... is gonna suck," he said. "I'll make it quick ... as I can." He wrapped his hand around Daniel's arm, and he tightened his fingers as much as he could.

Daniel squeezed back.

 _'It's okay, Johnny. You have to get up.'_

 _'I wish he'd let go. He's gonna make me hurt him.'_

Pulling his knees up while gravity did its damndest to pull him down was harder than he'd expected. He really needed both arms to do it. As it was, all he could do was transfer his weight entirely to his left arm – to Daniel's right arm – and use it as an anchor so he could get his legs under him. He tried to stay flat while he did it, but he couldn't. He had to raise up and lean back. For a few seconds, every ounce of his weight was suspended from their clasped wrists, like a rock climber hangdogging from a fixed rope.

 _'LaRusso on belay.'_

Something shifted in the front of Johnny's shoulder, and he grunted against the pain it caused.

The sound that passed Daniel's lips was indescribable.

Finally, Johnny was on his knees and right elbow, and he pressed his forehead to the ground. Every inch of him hurt. His vision was blurry. His back was spasming. His side was throbbing. His ears were ringing. He felt blood running from his nose and across his lips. Someone had shoved a giant nail through his skull.

He just wanted to stay where he was until it all went away. His mind told him it was time to give up. His body demanded that he lay back down. His legs and arm wobbled and threatened to give way. He closed his eyes and breathed as deeply as his ribs would let him.

 _'You have to move.'_

 _'Working on it.'_

 _'You can't keep hanging from his arm.'_

 _'I know.'_

 _''You are going to ki...'_

 _'Enough! I get it!'_

He lifted his head, ground his teeth together, and started crawling.

Daniel didn't let go.

"You are ... a stubborn ... little shit ... LaRusso," he said, repeating the words he'd said earlier as he dragged himself up the incline one inch at a time. "I'll ... give ya ... that." When he'd climbed far enough, he put his left hand flat on the ground. He took a deep breath and stabilized his base, relieved that he was finally holding his own weight. The pull on Daniel's arms was released, and when his muscles relaxed, Johnny tried to pry his fingers off his wrist.

Daniel still didn't let go.

"Stubborn," he repeated. "Little shit."

He crawled the rest of the way, just as slowly as before, but with the added awkwardness of pushing/dragging Daniel's arm with him. When he finally made it to Daniel's side, he leaned to the right, flopped on the ground next to him, and collapsed against the tree. He wiped the blood running from his nose away with the back of his hand. He let his head fall forward, closed his eyes, and allowed himself a few seconds to be grateful for his survival.

Then he reached down and tapped Daniel on the shoulder. "Hey," he said breathlessly. "LaRusso. I'm here. You can let go now."

Daniel didn't release him, but the words he was saying did change. "Tolyou ... shutfuck ... up."

Johnny opened his eyes and looked down at him in confusion. "Huh? When'd you say that?"

"Donleggo."

Johnny sighed. "Okay. Back to that, then. So, we'll do it my way. Again." He lifted his left arm and tried to slide his right hand under Daniel's. "Not only a pig-headed ass," he said when Daniel fought to hold on. "But stronger than you look." He peeled Daniel's fingers away, one at a time. As each one slipped off, the others only tightened. "If I end up with a bruise ... of your handprint ... on my arm, I am gonna be ... so pissed."

Johnny finally succeeded in making Daniel let go, and his shoulders slumped in relief. Daniel's hand curled into a fist as it dropped. It landed on Johnny's knee, and Johnny let it stay there. He rubbed his wrist and shook his arm, but he didn't even have time to restore the circulation to his fingers.

Daniel's sort-of-conscious state mutated into full-blown instant panic, his fingers flew open, and he thrust his hand out as far as he could.

"Johnny!"

Daniel's eyes were blown wide open, bloodshot, and filled with terror. He was grasping at the empty air, trying desperately to grab something – someone – that didn't need to be saved anymore. Johnny rose to his knees, caught Daniel's flailing arm, and tried to hold it still. That only made Daniel more frantic.

"No! Johnny!"

 _'He needs to find you.'_

Johnny pressed Daniel's hand to his chest. "Hey!" he shouted. "I'm right here. Look at me. Calm down." That didn't work, either. Daniel wouldn't or couldn't see him. He was fighting Johnny with every ounce of strength he had, which admittedly wasn't much, trying to pull his hand away. Laying on his stomach the way he was, he was going to rip that stab wound open again if he hadn't already.

It was the tree all over again.

"Damn it." Johnny put his hand on the side of Daniel's head and leaned down into his face. "Daniel!"

Just as before, Daniel blinked, and everything changed. He still looked confused, exhausted, absolutely drained. But the fear and guilt that had filled his eyes were gone.

"Johnny?"

Johnny pulled his hand away and smiled down at him. "Hey."

"You're okay." The words were carried on an exhausted exhale. Every muscle in Daniel's body went lax at the same time. His arm thudded to the ground between them, and he didn't try to lift it again. If it had been physically possible for him to sink into the mountain, he would have. His eyes fell closed, and he drew in a shuddering breath. "Thank God."

"No." Johnny shook his head, slowly moved his legs to the side, and lowered himself to sit on the ground at Daniel's side. "Thank _you,_ " he whispered.

The words came more easily than he thought they would, and he should have spoken them more loudly than he did. He patted Daniel's arm and repeated them with conviction. "Thank you, Daniel."

"You don't need to ..." Daniel's eyes reopened quickly, and they grew wide. "You're hurt! Your back!" He pressed his hand against the ground and started to lever himself up. "And your shoulder, and your side, and ... ah!" He fell back to the ground with a cry, and Johnny shook his head.

"What is it with you? Why can't you just stay down?"

"You shouldn't be moving." Daniel was shifting around again, but instead of trying to push himself up with his right hand, it looked like he was trying to pull his left down to his side. "You hit your back, and is your shoulder out of place? And ..." Johnny tilted his head and watched him through narrowed eyes. Daniel was having a lot more trouble moving that arm than he should have been.

"I'm fine," Johnny said distractedly. He leaned forward and followed Daniel's arm up and around the tree with his eyes. "A little sore, but don't worry about me, I'm ..." His voice trailed off when he realized why Daniel couldn't pull his arm down.

Well, that explained how he had kept himself from sliding.

"Um ... LaRusso?"

"... maybe broken ribs, and what about your head, and..." Daniel was tugging on his arm, letting out small whimpers and groans every time he did, but he didn't seem to notice it wasn't moving. He wasn't doing anything other than hurting himself. Again.

"LaRusso! Stop!"

Daniel stopped. He turned his head slightly and squinted up at Johnny.

"Is your arm stuck?"

Daniel's eyebrows lowered in thought. "Oh," he said. They shot back up, and his eyes widened. "Oh, yeah. I think it ... no, you're right. It is." He giggled weakly, reminding Johnny that no matter how dire the situation may have been, Daniel was still at least partly three sheets to the wind. "I forgot."

Johnny shook his head. "Of course, your arm is stuck in the tree," he grumbled, letting his head fall forward against the palm of his hand. "Because, of course, it is."

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" Miguel asked nervously. "You don't think he'll mind?"

Robby shrugged as he walked away from the car and toward the service bay door. "I think he's probably got more important stuff to worry about right now than who's driving his car."

Miguel jogged after him. "Well, yeah, but ..." He looked down at the keys in his hand and then back at the Audi. "Robby, that's a really expensive car. I've never driven a car like that. I get nervous driving my mom's van."

That was a feeling Robby understood. He'd never driven anything but the driver's ed car before the first time Mr. LaRusso had let him drive the Q7. "It's not like you're driving it down Ventura Boulevard," he said, as he pushed the button to raise the door. "You're just pulling it out to the parking lot. It's a straight line. There's nothing to run into."

They watched together, in silence, as the door rose in front of them. Once it was open, Robby turned around, gestured at the parking lot with his arm, and tipped his head.

Miguel took a deep breath, turned and walked back to the car. He stood and stared at the door for a few seconds before he finally got in. He put both hands on the steering wheel, with his arms straight and his elbows locked. He blew his breath out through pursed lips, blinked repeatedly, and turned to face Robby again.

"Robby, I don't ..."

"Go, Miguel."

Miguel swallowed hard and pushed the button to start the car. His eyes grew large, and he looked at Robby once more as the engine roared to life. Robby simply pointed out the door. Miguel shifted into drive, shrugged his shoulders, and pulled forward very, very slowly.

Robby smiled. He turned and walked out as the car passed him, and once it had cleared the door, he reached around the inside of the frame and pushed the button again. Miguel threw the car into park, left it running, and jumped out as quickly as he could.

"Okay," he said, backing away from the driver's door slowly. "I'm done. You can drive from now on."

Robby laughed. The garage door settled against the ground, and he keyed in the code to lock it up again. They'd cleaned up the small mess they'd made, put all the tools away, and put the old tires on the disposal rack. When everyone arrived for work on Monday morning, none of them would have any idea that anyone had been there over the weekend. Except for Anoush.

Robby pulled the inhaler out of his pocket. "Here," he said, tossing it to Miguel. "I'll tell Anoush what happened. You may as well keep this. You might need it again before we're done."

Miguel caught it in mid-air without a word, and he slipped it into his jeans pocket as he turned and jogged to the other side of the car. Robby climbed in, and when the passenger door opened, he looked over.

"Okay," he said, watching Miguel get settled and buckled in. "Try them again?"

Miguel nodded and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He pushed a number at the top of his contact list and held it to his ear. Robby held his breath and bit his lip. Less than a minute later, Miguel pushed the end button angrily. He scrolled quickly through the other names on his screen, found the one he was looking for – the one he'd only had for a couple of hours – and pushed it, too. After another minute, Miguel's entire face fell, and he shook his head as he lowered the phone.

"Still nothing."

Robby let his breath out and dropped his head. "Miguel, what if ...?"

"They're fine!" The tone was forceful, frustrated, angry. It didn't match the words he was saying at all. "There's just no signal. It doesn't mean anything. They're fine." Despite the force of his declaration, Miguel slammed his fist into the dashboard. "Let's go get our backup," he said. "It's time to go. It's time to bring them home."

Robby nodded in agreement. "Just tell me where," he said.

Miguel pushed another number on his phone and held his finger up. "Hey," he said after a few seconds. "Man, I need to talk to you. It's important. Where are you?" A pause as he waited for the answer. "Can you stay there? I can be there in like twenty minutes?" Another pause. "Okay, good. Twenty minutes. I'm serious. Don't leave."

He ended the call and put the phone back in his pocket.

"The park by the school," he said, looking straight ahead. "We have to go to the park."

Robby nodded and pulled forward. As they turned out of the parking lot and on to the street, he spoke again. "Who is it?" he asked. "Who are we getting?"

Miguel took a deep breath before he answered him. "Hawk."

Robby shot a panicked glance in his direction. "Seriously?"

"We need him," Miguel declared. "I know what he did was ... what we both did. It was wrong. We were just ..." He seemed to be having trouble thinking of what words to use, but Robby knew what he was trying to say.

"Hey," he said. "It's okay." Miguel turned toward him, a question in his eyes, and Robby nodded. "Yeah, I mean that. It's okay. Or, I guess, it doesn't matter. Bigger shit to deal with, right?"

"Yeah," Miguel agreed. "Yeah, bigger shit. And Hawk's a badass fighter," he finished. "We need a badass."

Robby had to admit that Miguel did have a point with that. "You think he'll do it? When he sees that I'm here?"

"He'll do it," Miguel said with a confident nod. "He'll do it, or I'll kick his ass."

* * *

"You big damn hero types are so stupid."

Daniel didn't really have the energy or the oxygen to argue with the guy, but he didn't know what else to do. He wasn't really in a position to do much else, anyway.

"What's that s'posed to mean?"

Johnny had managed to push/pull/drag him out of the middle of the slope, and he was lying roughly where he'd started before his whole plan had gone to hell. He could feel Johnny looking down at him, but he couldn't see him. After making certain that Daniel was stable and wasn't going to start slipping and skidding around again, Johnny had gone behind the tree, and he was trying to figure out a way to get his arm unstuck.

"Don't you know what you're supposed to do when someone wants to kill you?"

Of course, he didn't. What the hell kind of question was that? Who actually knew that? It wasn't exactly something that happened often enough for him to know the protocol. Even when it had happened on an insanely regular basis, he obviously hadn't known, because it had kept happening.

"No."

He was exhausted. He was still half-drunk. He was in pain. His shoulders were cramped and sore. He was starting to think he had a fever. He couldn't feel his left arm below the elbow. His knee was one big lump of non-functional agony. His side felt tight and swollen, it was burning and itching at the same time, and it was getting worse. And if the sticky wetness against his skin was any indication, he was still bleeding after that little slide he'd taken on his stomach.

He wanted to close his eyes, at least for a little while. He was so tired. But if he did that, he'd most likely fall asleep, and he couldn't. They'd already been delayed by at least half an hour, and losing more time was the last thing they could afford. So he forced his eyes to stay open, but he didn't lift his head from the ground.

"What'm I s'posed to do?"

"Run. You're supposed to run. Not turn around and throw yourself right at the guy. Not toss yourself out as bait so everyone else can get away."

At some point, Johnny had stopped teasing him and started lecturing him, sounding more like a concerned adult trying to impart wisdom on a reluctant child than a life-long enemy giving him crap. It was an odd sound.

"Okay, I think I've got it," Johnny said suddenly. "It looks like there's some give between these branches or trunks or whatever they are. I'm gonna push them apart, and then ..."

"You can't use your back!" Daniel protested.

"Yeah, well, watch me," Johnny snapped back. "Or, ya know, don't. Because you can't see me from there."

"Johnny ..."

"I'm gonna push them apart as far as I can. I'll pull your arm up, and then you pull it out, okay? You got it? Can you do that?"

Daniel tried to nod, but all he did was dig the side of his face into the ground. "Yeah." He tried to spit as he said it, in a futile effort to get the dirt off his lips and out of his mouth. "I can do that."

"Okay. On three. One ... two ... three ..."

He didn't know what Johnny was doing. He couldn't see how he'd positioned himself. He had no idea if he was using his back or his arms or his legs. But whatever it was, it worked. The pressure on his arm disappeared so quickly, he didn't even have time to realize it was gone before Johnny was pulling up on his wrist. He was almost relieved, but then the bark that had been so deeply embedded in his arm for so long that he'd almost started thinking it was part of him was ripping and tearing at his skin again.

Instinct took over. He yanked his wrist out of Johnny's hand and his arm out of the tree. He bent it sharply, wrapped his other hand around it, cradled it to his chest, and rolled to his back. He lay there, staring up at the sky, seeing it for the first time in longer than he could remember. Then he was looking at a face, with blue eyes and a crooked grin, that had popped through the tree right above him.

"Anyway, if someone wants to kill you, you're supposed to run, LaRusso," Johnny said. "You're supposed to save yourself."

Daniel blinked up at him slowly. He knew it wasn't real. It was the exhaustion, the whiskey, the pain, and the fever messing with his eyes and head. But it really was a bit much. The sun glowing behind the blond hair didn't have to give the man a halo.

Johnny Lawrence. His rival. His tormentor. His reluctant ally. His guardian angel.

His big damn hero.

He felt the hysterical giggle building, and he didn't stop it when it erupted from him with a snort. But he regretted it almost immediately.

"Right," he croaked, wincing and pressing his arm more tightly against his chest. "Because that's what you did."

Johnny stared down at him, serious worry in his eyes and on his face. Then he bit his bottom lip and dropped his head.

"Shut up."

Daniel opened his mouth to say something else, but whatever it was, the words never passed his lips, and he didn't remember what they were going to be. Liquid fire started pouring down the inside of his left arm, under the skin, filling it all the way to the bone, from his elbow to his fingertips. Mixed with it were knives and broken glass and a thousand tiny needles that shredded his veins from the inside out. He pushed his arm tighter against his chest, squeezed it harder with his right hand, and ground his teeth together. His head reared back, and he slammed it into the ground as he panted and writhed and whimpered. "Oh, God! Shit! Jesus!"

Johnny's expression changed from playful and embarrassed to shocked and worried. He launched himself through the tree and landed on his knee at Daniel's right side. "What is it?" he demanded, reaching for Daniel's arm. "What's wrong? Is it broken?"

"No! It hurts!" Daniel jerked away, and he tried to turn his whole body to the left.

Johnny gripped his shoulders and stopped him from rolling away, and then Daniel felt himself moving again. Johnny had grabbed him under his arms, manhandled him up from the ground, pulled him to sitting, and pushed him back against the tree.

"What hurts?" Johnny demanded. "Is it bleeding? Did you get cut?"

Daniel nodded his head, but through his clenched teeth, he said, "No. Feels like fire. Inside. Fuck!"

Johnny's eyes grew impossibly wide. "The circulation's coming back. Oh, shit." He jumped across Daniel's legs and went to his knees at his other side. "Here, let me." He reached for Daniel's arm, but Daniel pulled it away again. "Stay still and let me!" Johnny ordered. "You're gonna make it worse."

He grasped Daniel's arm with both hands, one just above his elbow and the other just above his wrist, and he forced it straight. Daniel fought against him, wanting to keep it tucked away and protected, but Johnny shook his head. "Relax," he said. "Bending it will make it hurt worse. Just trust me, okay?"

Johnny started moving his fingers, working his hands closer together, massaging the skin to help the blood flow easier. Daniel could feel every muscle in his arm, each twinging and twitching and screaming in turn. Johnny somehow managed to press on every single one of them, releasing the knots almost immediately after they formed. He felt the blood pulsating and throbbing with every beat of his heart, but Johnny was getting it to slow down. Daniel wanted to ask him how he was doing that, and how he knew how to do that, but he couldn't make his mouth form words. The unintelligible sounds he was making were hard enough to get out.

"Just breathe through it," Johnny said softly. "It'll get better. It won't last. Just breathe."

Daniel stared at his arm and breathed. He tried to ignore the spasms and shooting, burning pain, but it was pointless. He did stop trying to pull his arm away, but it took real effort. His mind didn't want to keep fighting, but his body didn't want to stop. He forced the muscles in his arms to relax, and he let Johnny do whatever he wanted to it.

It wasn't like he could stop him, anyway.

He couldn't stop anything. He couldn't do anything. He was only upright because Johnny had picked him up off the ground. His knee would never work right again. It was growing increasingly difficult to breathe. He was so thirsty it almost hurt.

He was so tired of being in pain. He was so sick of being the cross that Johnny was forcing himself to bear. He just wanted it all to go away. He just wanted to stand on his own two feet. He just wanted to feel whole again.

He just wanted to close his eyes and sit there until he stopped feeling anything.

"Is it getting better?" Johnny's voice reached him through the darkness that had started taking root in his mind, but he didn't respond. "Is it letting up?"

He was done. He had nothing left. Even if he could find the strength to keep fighting, what was the point? He couldn't win. There were some things he couldn't do, no matter how much he wanted to. It didn't matter how stubborn he was. He couldn't just refuse to die and expect it to work. He'd already admitted the truth to himself. Why keep trying when he knew how it was going to end? Why not just say it out loud and get it over with?

"Hey, answer me."

Johnny.

All of his questions were answered with that one name. It was about Johnny. Johnny was why he couldn't stop. Johnny was why he had to keep fighting. If he gave up, there'd be no one to take care of Johnny. There'd be no one to make sure Johnny got off the mountain. And if Johnny didn't get off the mountain, there'd be no one to take care of the kids. Miguel needed him far more than he needed Daniel, and though he might not be willing to admit it yet, Robby did, too.

Whatever had pulled Mike back to the Valley after all those decades, whatever had brought John Kreese back from the dead, it didn't matter. Whatever they may or may not have had to do with each other, no matter what they wanted, they weren't going to get it. They hadn't won yet, and they weren't going to. Because Johnny was going to get off that mountain. Johnny was going to do the one thing Daniel had never been able to do. Johnny was going to stop them.

He focused his eyes on Johnny's face, forced a smile to his lips, and nodded. "Better." That was a lie. Nothing was better. Nothing was going to get better. Everything was going to keep getting worse. But it wasn't the right time to say it yet. If he told Johnny the truth, everything they'd been through would have been for nothing.

Johnny Lawrence was going to protect those kids. Even if it meant Daniel LaRusso died trying.

Johnny's shoulders slumped in relief. He stopped massaging Daniel's arm and let it back down to his side. He leaned forward and looked at it, examining it as closely as he could through the jacket. "You sure it's not broken?" he asked. "It was wedged in there pretty tight."

Daniel shook his head slowly. "Not broken."

"But it's bleeding, right? It got cut up?" The bleeding thing wasn't even in doubt, because there was blood visible around the edges of the cuts. Johnny pulled at the sliced-open sleeve, trying to see the skin beneath it. When he couldn't, he grabbed the cuff with his fingers and tried to pull Daniel's arm out of it. Daniel hissed.

"Leave it," he said. "Not bad." That may have been a lie, too. He didn't know. The inside of his elbow felt like hamburger, and for all he knew, it looked like it, too. But in the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter. It was just another injury to add to the list. Like the knee he'd looked at but regretted seeing, the bruised and cut up face he couldn't see, and the stab wound he hadn't seen and didn't want to.

Johnny stopped tugging on the jacket and instead touched the red fabric gently. "You're a goddamned liar, LaRusso. You know that?"

Daniel felt his eyes widen, and he coughed weakly. There was no way Johnny knew what had been going on in his head. Was there? "What?"

"You promised you wouldn't bleed on my jacket," he said, tipping his head slightly. "And not only did you get your blood all over it, you tore it all to hell."

Daniel wanted to laugh, but it would have hurt too much, so he didn't. "Sorry 'bout that," he said with a sigh. "I'll get ya a new one."

Johnny looked down at the ground. "Yeah, well. I think I kinda, um …" He shrugged. "Ya know, lost your phone when I fell. So why don't we just call it even?"

"My whole life … is on that phone."

"And I really love that jacket," Johnny countered.

"Okay," Daniel relented with a shrug. "Sounds fair."

Johnny settled back on his heels. "Well, that was fun," he said, running his fingers through his hair roughly. "What say we don't do any of that again, though? Ever?"

"Works for me."

"So, now what?" Johnny asked.

Daniel looked over at him. He wasn't giving up. He was going to keep fighting. He was going to push his body as far as it would go. He was going to go wherever Johnny went for as long as he could. He wasn't going to surrender until he had no other choice. But at the same time, he had to face reality. He had information that Johnny was going to need in the future, and while it was still possible for him to do it, he had to give it to him.

"Now," he said, shifting slightly on the ground and pressing his hand back to his side. "I think we need to talk."

Johnny nodded slowly, but the expression on his face said he didn't like where he thought the conversation was going. "Okay." He didn't look at Daniel's face, but instead followed his hand with his eyes. "Talk about what?"

Daniel took a deep breath. "I need ..." He didn't want to do it. He'd never done it. He'd kept it to himself for more than thirty years. He'd hidden his fear, his regret, and his shame from everyone. He'd kept it from the world, from his friends, even from his wife. But Johnny needed to know. "I need to tell you ..."

Johnny suddenly rose up on his knees, leaned forward, and grabbed Daniel's wrist. He pulled his hand up and away from his side. "What is that?!" he demanded.

"What?" Daniel asked, genuinely both surprised and confused. He had no idea what Johnny was talking about. "What is what?"

"Why is your sweatshirt wet?"

Daniel blinked at him. "Oh."

He did know what Johnny was talking about after all; he'd felt it running down his stomach. He hadn't thought it would be visible, so he hadn't worried about it being seen. He didn't want to tell Johnny, though. He didn't want to tell him that he'd known about it, or when it had started, or that he'd just not bothered to mention it to him.

"What?"

"Don't play dumb, LaRusso! When the hell did you start ...?" Johnny kept hold of his wrist and wouldn't let him put his hand back on the wound. "Don't touch it!"

"It's fine," Daniel protested. "It's still bandaged. It just ... it's maybe just a little ... It's not bad."

"Um, no," Johnny said. "You had a knife shoved into your gut. All bleeding is bad." He reached for the bottom of the hoodie with his other hand.

Daniel didn't know why he was so against Johnny pulling that sweatshirt up. He just knew that whatever was under it, he didn't want Johnny to see it. He didn't want to see it, either. It would be so much harder to keep up the charade if reality was staring him in the face.

"No, Johnny, just ... leave it. It'll stop. It'll ..."

"Just leave it. Just leave it." The sarcasm in the mocking words was almost a physical thing. "Ya know, the more you say that, the more I don't want to _just leave it_." Johnny looked up at him with narrowed eyes, and Daniel's argument died on his lips. "Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded. "Damn it! You should have ..."

"I didn't ... I forgot about it." That wasn't strictly true, but it was close enough. Besides, it didn't matter. Most of what he'd been saying for the past several minutes had been more lie than not. What was one more?

It wasn't that he liked lying, because he didn't, but it had become one of his go-to moves. He didn't want to call it a talent, but he was damn good at it. And lying to Johnny was no different than lying to Robby had been. He was doing a bad thing for a good reason. His intentions were what mattered.

"Besides, whatchya ... gonna do about it?"

Johnny let go of Daniel's wrist and looked back down. "Maybe nothing," he muttered. "But you still should've told me." Daniel started to cover it again, but Johnny wouldn't let him. "Stop that!" he ordered. Daniel reluctantly obeyed. He lowered his hand to the ground and leaned his head against the tree as Johnny pulled the sweatshirt up and out of the way.

When he started lifting the edges of the folded up t-shirt to look at the wound under it, Daniel took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," he whispered. Once again, he was overwhelmed by the urge to close his eyes until it all went away, but he refused to do it. He stared at the sky, watching the clouds float lazily above them.

Johnny's hands stopped moving, as if whatever he was seeing had frozen him in place. Stranger was the silence that fell along with that sudden lack of motion. It hung there for several long moments, and finally, Daniel could take it no longer. He lifted his head and looked up.

"What?" Daniel asked. "Is it ... bad?"

"You're not bleeding."

"Oh." He sighed. "That's good." He searched Johnny's face for the relieved response he expected to see, but it wasn't there. The worried expression he saw in its place confused him. "Isn't it?"

Johnny shook his head slowly. "No." He looked up and locked eyes with Daniel. "No, I don't think it is."

* * *

"Are you really sure about this?"

Robby pulled the car into the small gravel lot and shifted into park. Hawk was standing about fifteen feet in front of them. He wasn't alone, but he was waiting for them, just like he'd said he would be. He smiled when he saw Miguel, but when he saw Robby, his eyes narrowed, and his hands clenched into fists.

"He really doesn't like me."

Miguel shrugged lightly. "Yeah, well, neither do I. Remember?" He tried to keep a straight face, but he couldn't. He glanced at Robby and grinned.

Robby nodded and smiled. "Good point."

"It'll be okay. I can handle him. Just ... ya know. Stay here, okay? This won't take long." He opened his door and climbed out.

"It better not," Robby said after him. "We've been gone too long already."

Miguel nodded in agreement, closed the door, and walked away.

"Hawk!" he called out as he crossed the grass. He acknowledged Hawk's companion with a nod. "Hey, Kev. I'm glad you're both here."

Hawk didn't wait for him to say anything more. He stepped forward, swinging his arms in anger. "What the hell, Miguel? Why the hell is he ...?"

"We've got a problem," Miguel announced. "A big one. Sensei's in trouble."

That shut Hawk up.

"We don't know exactly what happened. All we know is Sensei's hurt. We're pretty sure Mr. LaRusso is, too. We know the guy who did it, but we don't know where they are. Exactly. The last we knew, they were on the mountain somewhere, and ..."

"Hang on," Hawk said, cutting Miguel off with a wave of his hand. "I'm down for helping Sensei, no matter what. You know that. But that LaRusso guy is on his own."

Miguel shook his head vigorously. "Not good enough. They're both in trouble. Sensei went to find Mr. LaRusso, and he found him, but he stayed there with him. He wouldn't have done that without a reason. Robby thinks the reason is Mr. LaRusso's hurt. If that's true, and if Sensei stayed to help him, then we're going to help him, too. We're going back to get them both."

"Let his student worry about him. Or does poor baby's shoulder hurt too bad?" Hawk sneered at the car. "They're our enemies, Miguel! Enemies deserve no ..."

"Cut that crap out!" Miguel dropped his hands in frustration. "This is serious, Hawk. This isn't some damn tournament, and it's not a joke. It's not a game. They are in real trouble. This is real life and death shit we're talking about here. And if Robby is right, then Mr. LaRusso is hurt really bad, and ..."

"So what?"

Miguel blinked silently. "You can't mean that," he said softly. He shook his head. "No. No, you don't. You can't be that far gone. I tell you a man is hurt, and he might die, and you're just gonna shrug it off and let him? Come on, man."

"I'll help Sensei," Hawk said again. "I don't give a damn what happens to LaRusso."

"They're _not_ our enemies." Miguel ground the words out through clenched teeth. "There's this guy, Mike. We don't know who he is or what he was doing there, but he's the one who hurt Sensei. He knocked him out with a tree branch. If Mr. LaRusso's hurt, then he's the one who hurt him, too. He's still up there with them, as far as we know. He's our enemy."

A car door opened behind him, and he spun his head toward the sound. "Come on, Miguel!" Robby called out. "We gotta go!"

Exactly as Miguel had known he would do, Hawk took an angry step forward. Robby, to his credit, didn't move. Miguel stepped in front of Hawk, put his hand on his chest, and looked over at Kev.

"Are you with us?" he asked. Kev nodded silently. "Good. We need all the help we can get." He jerked his head toward the Audi. "Get in the car." Kev walked off without a word, and Miguel turned back to Hawk.

"Eli, listen to me."

Hawk knocked his hand away angrily. "What did you call me?"

Miguel ignored the outburst. "You wanna come, that's fine. We want you to. We need you. But this beef with Robby and Mr. LaRusso, it stays here. You do not take it in that car with you, do you hear me?"

"Miguel, he ...!"

"He," Miguel said hotly, pointing at Robby, "has a name. It's Robby. Robby Keene. And, yes, he's Mr. LaRusso's student, but he's also Sensei's son."

"What?" Hawk was as shocked by the revelation as Miguel had been.

Miguel nodded. "Yeah, I know. I wish I had time to explain, but I don't. Just ... look, me and him have been through some shit today." He thought back over everything they'd said and done, everything that had happened to and around them. "Some serious shit. And I'm telling you right now, you start anything with him, I'm taking his side, not yours. I will choose him over you."

Hawk's eyes narrowed, and his jaw hardened. He shoved Miguel in the chest and stepped back from him.

"Listen, I don't expect you to understand. But I needed help, and he helped me. He had my back when I needed it. And I'm gonna have his." Hawk dropped his head, and Miguel stepped forward and lowered his voice. "He saved my life, Eli. Literally. And you don't ..." He took a deep breath and swallowed, and then he gave himself a second to put his thoughts and feelings into words before trying to speak them out loud.

"You don't know what that feels like. Or what it means. To be there, and be thinking you're going to die, and have someone do whatever they can to save you. But for a few minutes, all this shit ..." He waved his arms through the air, from Hawk back to Robby and then to his own chest. "This shit didn't matter. Our beef, your beef, the tournament, the party ... none of it matters anymore. Because even with all that shit, he was there when I needed him. That's what matters. Everything I need to know about Robby Keene, I learned when I couldn't breathe, and he did everything he could to fix it."

Hawk kept his head down, and he stared at his feet. "So, what? He's your new best friend?"

Miguel sighed. "I don't know. A guy saves your life, he kinda grows on ya, ya know?" He shrugged. "He's not gonna replace you, but maybe, at least for today, we're in this together. Me and him. We want you with us, but if that's a problem for you, then we'll do it without you." He grabbed Hawk's shoulders, and Hawk looked up at him. "We're going back for _both_ of them. That's the deal. And Robby _will_ be there because he has more to lose on that mountain than any of us do. So, if you wanna be part of this, your bullshit stays here. If it doesn't, you do."

With that, he turned and walked back toward the car. Robby saw him coming, climbed back in, and closed his door.

"Miguel!"

He'd said his piece. He had nothing else to say. And besides, Robby was right. They'd been gone too long, and he'd wasted too much time standing there arguing. They had Kev. And Hawk wasn't the only badass in the dojo, anyway.

"Miguel, wait up! I'm coming with!"

Miguel smiled as he reached for the door.

* * *

Johnny saw the confusion in Daniel's eyes, and he wanted to make it go away, but he wasn't done processing what he was looking at. He sighed and turned his full attention back to the wound. It wasn't as clean as it had been earlier, and that was putting it mildly. The edges were starting to pull away from each other, the area around it was swollen and bruised, so dark it was almost black, and dark red streaks were shooting out from it and spreading under the skin. As he'd said, what was oozing from it wasn't blood. Blood was red. What had soaked through the makeshift bandage and into Daniel's sweatshirt, what Johnny was watching roll down his stomach toward the waistband of his jeans, was yellow.

"Fuck."

"Hm?" Daniel started to sit up straighter, but Johnny held his hand up.

"Stay still," he commanded. "It's not ..." He wanted to tell him it wasn't bad. He wanted to tell him it was okay. He wanted to tell him he was going to be fine. He wanted to lie through his teeth. He couldn't do it. "I think it's ... it's infected."

He looked at Daniel's face, and for the first time, he let himself see the flush on his cheeks, the sweat on his skin, the dark circles around his sunken eyes. Infections didn't happen alone. He couldn't stop himself from reaching out and putting his hand on Daniel's forehead. The heat he felt wasn't unexpected, but it still surprised him. How had he not noticed it when he'd had the man pressed against his side, dragging him down the mountain?

"Jesus," he mumbled. Daniel's eyes widened, and Johnny smiled at him weakly. "You've got one hell of a fever."

Daniel nodded slowly and looked away again.

"How long have you had that?"

Daniel shrugged. "I dunno," he answered. "A while, I think? Maybe. Thought maybe I was just ... still drunk."

Johnny pulled his right leg up, rested his elbow on his knee, and ran his hand down his face. "How far are we from camp?"

"Um ... 'bout ten minutes," Daniel answered. "I think."

"For normal people who can walk at a normal speed. What would that be for the walking wounded, like us?"

Daniel shook his head. "No idea. More than that."

Johnny ran through their options in his mind. It didn't take very long, because they didn't have many. In truth, they only had one. They had to get moving again. That meant more walking, which meant ... wait a second. What the hell?

"Where's your splint?" Johnny glanced at the ground around them quickly, expecting it to be close by. It wasn't. "Where is it?" It couldn't have gone very far, because no way in hell could Daniel have gotten down that slope without it. And it couldn't have been gone very long, because he'd have noticed it was missing.

Wouldn't he?

"LaRusso?"

Daniel mumbled an answer, but the words were so soft that Johnny didn't understand them. At least, he couldn't have heard them right. There was no way Daniel had just said what Johnny thought he'd said.

"You did what?"

Daniel cleared his throat and spoke louder. "I cut it off."

"Why would you do a stupid thing like that? And where is it?"

Daniel didn't speak again, but he gestured toward the pile of trees at the top of the slope.

"It's up there?" Johnny pointed at the trees himself. He didn't believe it. He couldn't believe it. It wasn't even possible, was it? How was anything that was happening real? "You left it up ... you got down here without it? How? Why?!"

Daniel didn't seem to have any intention of answering those questions. Instead, he took advantage of Johnny's distraction to grasp the hem of his sweatshirt with both hands, pull it down, and cover his side with his right hand again. The festering, oozing wound disappeared from sight. Johnny let him do it, because it didn't really matter. He'd already seen it. But he would have given anything to banish the memory of it from his mind as easily.

Everything was spinning out of control. They weren't even getting down-time between one catastrophe and the next. It was all happening too fast.

Their situation had been bad enough when Daniel had been the only one hurt, and when he'd only had to deal with a "fixed" dislocated kneecap and a hole in his side. But everything that could have gone wrong had gone and was still going wrong. Daniel had taken his splint off and walked on that "fixed" knee, and Johnny doubted it was much "fixed" anymore. The hole in Daniel's side was infected, and he had a fever. That both had gotten so bad so quickly meant they weren't caused by anything on the outside that had gotten into the wound; the infection was coming from the inside out. Daniel wasn't just injured; he was sick and getting sicker by the minute. And to top it all off, Johnny had fallen and gotten himself hurt, too, at the one time Daniel needed him more than anyone had needed him in years. It was too much to process. It was too much to think about. It was too much to deal with.

It was all too much.

He shoved himself to his feet without another word, turned away from Daniel, and started running up the slope.

"Johnny!" Daniel called out behind him. "What're you doing?"

"Stay there!"

"Where're you ...?"

"Stay!"

It wasn't long before the incline had gotten too steep, and he was unable to keep running. But he didn't stop climbing. He had to get up there. He had to get as far away as he could. He started using the trees around him, grabbing them and pulling himself from one to the next. When he knew he couldn't go on any longer, he threw himself behind the largest one he could find.

He'd gotten high enough that the ground was mostly flat, and he shouldn't have needed to lean on anything to stay upright, but he did it anyway. His legs were shaky, his head was throbbing, and his back hurt, but those weren't his problem. They weren't why he was about to fall over. The tight grip he'd been holding on his emotions for the past few minutes – hours – was slipping. He'd held on just long enough to get somewhere Daniel couldn't see him, but he couldn't hold it back anymore.

He did the only thing he could do. He threw his head back, opened his mouth, and screamed at the sky without making a sound. It didn't help. He pounded his clenched fists into the trunk next to his hips, but even that wasn't enough. He needed more of a release than that. So, he spun to face the tree and punched it as hard as he could.

Twice.

The pain didn't hit until he pulled back to swing a third time, and it almost knocked him off his feet. He dropped his hand, and he stared down at his knuckles dumbly. The first two were split open and bleeding, the skin around them already swelling and turning purple.

 _'Well, that was fucking stupid.'_

He wasn't going to argue with that. It was the truth, and he deserved it.

 _'Do you feel better now?'_

 _'No.'_

 _'So, keep going. You're gonna help him so much by breaking your own damn hand.'_

"Johnny?"

 _'You hear that? You hear him? He needs you as whole as possible.'_

 _'I can't. I can't do this. I can't help him!'_

 _'You_ _ **have**_ _to!'_

 _'I_ _ **can't**_ _!'_

"Johnny? You ... okay?"

 _'Suck it the fuck up, Lawrence. He_ _ **needs**_ _you!'_

"John ... Johnny? Hey!" He could hear the rising panic in the voice. He could hear the faint rustling of the leaves, even from so far away. He didn't need to see Daniel to know what was going on. He was doing – trying to do – the same thing he'd been doing all day. He was trying to get up, find him, help him.

The man who needed to be taken care of was trying, once again, to take care of someone else.

"I'm good!" he called back. He lifted his head and stared straight ahead at the tree, hoping the shakiness in his voice didn't carry down the mountain with the words. "Just ... taking a break. Long climb. I'm okay. Stop moving around down there. Stay where I put you, you dumb ass!"

That seemed to appease Daniel, at least for the immediate future, and the shuffling sounds stopped. Johnny turned sideways, leaned his left shoulder against the trunk, and stared down at the back of his hand. He was shaking from head-to-toe, his heart was pounding, it hurt to breathe, and he was dizzy. He didn't know what was causing it, and he didn't care to figure it out. It would be a waste of time, because whatever it was, he had to get rid of it. Neither of them had time for him to have a breakdown.

They didn't have time for anything. They needed help. They needed the cops, and Daniel needed an ambulance, and they needed both of those things an hour ago. He pulled his phone out and flipped it open, but five seconds later, he was closing it again. He caught himself entertaining the thought of looking for signal, but the memory of his last attempt was enough to stop him. Instead, he cast his eyes to the ground in front of him, sighed, and slipped the phone back into his jeans.

 _'You good? You done?'_

He nodded in silent response to the voice, and he pushed away from the tree. He thought he did a pretty good job of walking in a straight line, and he was almost confident that Daniel wouldn't notice anything awkward about it from that distance.

"Sure you're okay? You're walkin' funny. Is your back ...?"

"Damn it, Daniel, I'm fine!"

 _'Persistent little bastard, ain't he?'_

By the time he reached the pile of trees, his legs had almost stopped wobbling. His shoulders were higher, his back was straighter, and his hand had stopped with the stabbing pain and was only throbbing. He looked around for a few seconds, trying to remember where Daniel had been sitting before he'd gone on his little solo trip down the mountain. The first thing he found was the knife, blade still open, protruding from the ground with the handle up, like it had been thrown there and gotten stuck. He pulled it from the dirt, wiped the blade on his jeans, closed it, and stuck it in his back pocket.

He saw them immediately after that. Just a few inches away, laying parallel to each other, were two small, sturdy branches, no more than an inch and a half in diameter and a little under eighteen inches long.

And on top of them, in a random heap, were a bunch of blue cloth strips. If they were still whole, if they'd been untied, he'd have seen eight ends. If they'd been cut in half, he'd have seen the same. His gut told him there were more than that, and he spared a few seconds to count them. He was sure there were some tucked or hidden under others, and he couldn't be certain how many there were without picking them up, but he did know there were more than eight. He could see fifteen.

"Oh, fuck." He fell to his knees next to the remains of the splint, let his head fall forward, and covered his mouth with his left hand. "Shit, Daniel," he breathed. "What the hell did you do?"

He picked the pieces up, one at a time, and looked at them each in turn. The four longest were still wrapped around one of the branches. But on top of and next to the other, there were another eight which were much shorter. None were more than an inch and a half long. When he'd put the splint on, he'd had some extra length on the strips, so he'd wrapped them around both branches three times before tying them off. He'd thought it would be more stable that way. Once he'd knotted them, he'd cut away the extra to keep the ends from flopping around and getting in Daniel's way when he tried to walk.

When Daniel cut it off, he had – for whatever reason – not cut straight down the middle, across the top, like he should have done. Instead, he'd cut through the strips where they encircled one of the branches. He'd cut them not into two pieces, but into four, and he'd made them all three inches shorter than they should have been.

 _'He wasn't thinking. He was scared. He was desperate.'_

 _'Why?'_

 _'Stand up. See what he saw.'_

Johnny pushed himself to his feet slowly, and for the first time since he'd climbed back up, he looked down toward the cliff. He could see Daniel clearly, thankfully still leaning against the tree where he'd left him. He saw the tree itself. He didn't know exactly where he'd ended up down there, because he hadn't been paying much attention during his crawl up, but he had a pretty good idea. And he knew vaguely where he'd been standing when he'd slipped. Between those two points were dozens of trees and rocks and boulders of varying sizes, mixed with bushes and random patches of weeds.

An obvious trail had been plowed through and between those things, very recently. The smaller plants that had been knocked over hadn't had time to stand back up yet.

 _'_ _He watched you fall. And he couldn't stop it.'_

Johnny closed his eyes briefly and turned his head. When he opened them again, he was looking right into Daniel's. He swallowed the lump in his throat, pointed toward the broken trees, laid-over weeds and disturbed ground between them.

"That was me?" He didn't understand why he asked that question, because he already knew the answer, but part of him needed the confirmation. "I did that?"

Daniel nodded his head silently.

He turned further, not wanting to spend any more time dwelling on the destruction his body had caused during its free-fall. There was another crude path to his left, one that looked an awful lot like the one he'd left behind. It was narrower, straighter, and less random than his, but it looked to have been made with nearly the same level of violence.

"And that?" he asked, swinging his arm around to point at it. "Where'd that come from?"

Daniel shrugged and dropped his head.

"That was you?" He wasn't asking for that answer; his tone demanded it. "You made that one? That's how you got down there?"

Daniel didn't answer, and he didn't look up.

Johnny clenched his teeth as anger swelled up from the pit of his stomach, displacing the frustration and helplessness that had filled his mind only moments before. He took one step toward the freshly-cut trail, and then he remembered what had sent him running up the mountain in the first place. He turned back around and scooped the sticks and longest cloth strips up from the ground before stalking back to the tree he'd punched.

He could see the pattern clearly from there. It was a zigzag, and either a tree or a large boulder marked every point where the direction changed. Daniel hadn't walked down the side of that mountain. He'd thrown himself down it, one large object at a time. His trip didn't look to have been any more pleasant than Johnny's, but at least he had been granted the small mercy of being out cold. Daniel would have felt the bone-rattling jolt of every single thing he'd slammed into.

"You idiot!" The decision to follow the same path was an easy one to make. He wanted – needed – to know exactly what Daniel had put himself through to get down to that tree. "Wasn't bad enough that you cut the damn splint off! And then you left it all the way up there." He was doing everything he imagined Daniel had done, using the trees and rocks to stop himself so he could turn and continue."You left the knife, too, and we're probably gonna need that! But don't worry."

Every sudden stop jarred him to his bones, but the fury boiling in his blood kept him moving. "I went and got it back for you. Since you couldn't be bothered to keep hold of it." He wasn't giving Daniel any time to answer him, but he didn't want to hear what he'd have said, anyway. "What the hell were you thinking?!" His left shoulder took the brunt of the impact with a particularly large tree, and fuck, that hurt! He grabbed it and doubled over.

"Johnny!"

"Shut up!" He raised his head, shook it, and aimed himself at the next obstacle along the path. "I don't want to hear what you were thinking! You weren't!"

"Be careful!"

"Careful?" He could hear the sarcasm in his own voice, felt the heat rising to his face, and knew that if he didn't calm down, he was going to explode. "Careful?! Is that what you were, LaRusso? When you were doing this ...!" His hips smashed into the boulder, and the force of it drove the air from his lungs. "To yourself?!" He pushed himself back up, and he turned again. "Was this you being careful?!"

"Slow down!" Daniel cried out. "I almost missed ...!"

Johnny realized he was going to overshoot the next tree barely a second before he did it, and he had just enough time to throw his right arm out and wrap it around the trunk to catch himself. His head bobbed forward, and he looked at the ground. He could see Daniel's footprints in the earth beneath him, saw the churned up dirt and rocks, and realized just how far they extended beyond where he was standing. That knowledge only fanned the flames that burned in his veins. "Almost missed this one, did ya?!" he demanded. "Would have been really fucking great if you had, huh? Because then we'd both be ...!"

He didn't say the word out loud, but he let it hang in the air between them as he closed the last bit of distance that still separated them. He fell to his knees and dropped the remains of the splint on the ground as he reached Daniel's side. He had no idea what was on his face or in his eyes, but whatever it was, it made Daniel rear back from him. He reached out, wrapped both hands around the collar of the red jacket, and pulled him forward.

"What did it cost you?!" He spit the words in Daniel's face. Daniel flinched and gasped, but even that wasn't enough to make him stop. "What the hell did it cost you, LaRusso?!" He yanked on the jacket roughly and shook him bodily, needing to find some outlet for the emotions still coursing through him, no matter how much pain it caused. He had a point to make, and he was damn well going to make it. "And was it fucking worth it?!"

Daniel stared at him in silence for a few seconds, then lowered his eyes to the ground. "Yes."

"It was?!" Johnny had been angry before. He'd been so enraged that he'd lost control before. But he didn't remember ever having seen the red flashes of his own blood pulsing through his eyes. "Your knee, your side, your arm, the fever, the pain, how screwed up your body is now, it was fucking worth it?!"

Daniel lifted his gaze and straightened his shoulders. "Yes," he repeated. "It was."

"How?!"

"Because you're still alive." The words were clipped, evenly spaced, and forceful. There was nothing but certainty on Daniel's face as he spoke them. And then, out of nowhere, a small, shy grin played at the corners of his mouth. "You dumb ass."

All of his rage, all of his frustration, all of his emotion evaporated with those words. His lungs deflated, and his muscles turned to jelly. His fingers flew open, and he released his hold on the jacket. As Daniel slumped against the tree, Johnny collapsed, landing on his back at Daniel's side with his arms splayed out to his sides. He lay there without moving, without speaking, only breathing heavily and staring up at the sky.

After a few moments of silence, Daniel tapped his arm lightly. "You okay?"

"I'm an idiot."

"Well, yeah." He didn't need to see the smile on Daniel's face to know it was there. He could hear it in his voice. "But are you okay?"

He nodded slowly. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'm okay." He felt cloth and sticks under his right hand, and he wrapped his fingers around them. He lifted them into the air and said, "Good news is, I got this back. Now all we gotta do is ..."

"What happened to your hand?"

He'd gotten so wrapped up in his anger, he'd forgotten about his little tantrum. Once he was reminded of it, pain started shooting across the back of his hand again, and he looked up at it. It looked awful, but after everything he'd just done, busted knuckles were the least he deserved. "Musta hit it on a tree," he muttered. He wasn't lying. That was technically true, and no way was he telling Daniel what he'd done up there. "It's fine." He rose up on his elbows, and he got his first look at Daniel's knee since he'd tied the splint around it the first time.

He sat the rest of the way up and carefully pulled the sliced-open denim to the side. Daniel hissed, but Johnny didn't look at him. That knee hadn't looked like it belonged to a human before; after Daniel had sacrificed it to save Johnny's life, it looked even worse. It had swollen to at least twice its normal size, and it had discolored so badly that there was no unbruised skin visible. Johnny took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.

"You walked on that?" he asked with a sympathetic wince.

Daniel shook his head. "Didn't exactly ... walk ..."

"What about now?" The realization of how much time they had lost shook Johnny to his core. They had to move. They had to get back to the camp, to the first-aid kit, and then to his car. And Mike Barnes was still out there somewhere. "You gonna be able to? Even if we put this thing back on your leg?"

Daniel's answer was a shrug. "I'm gonna try." Johnny looked up at him, and though Daniel tried to smile, it wasn't the least bit convincing. "Best I got. Sorry."

Johnny dropped his head. "Daniel ..." He sighed again. "What the hell are we gonna do?"

"We're gonna … keep going." Four simple words, that's all they were, but they meant more than Johnny would ever admit. They meant it wasn't over. They meant Daniel wasn't giving up. They meant he wasn't done yet. "And you're gonna put that thing back on my leg."

"Okay," he said, placing the branches on either side of Daniel's leg. "And what are you gonna do?"

Daniel pushed himself up slightly so he could sit straighter against the tree, and he licked his lips. "I'm gonna ... tell you a story."

* * *

"Why do we need anyone else? We've got me and you. And Kev. Who else do we need?"

Robby was getting good at letting Hawk's rants go in one ear and out the other. Very good. He thought Mr. LaRusso would be proud of him for that, and he caught himself pretending he was there to see it. He even found himself imagining his dad sticking up for him, yelling at the guy to knock it off and be quiet. Both of those thoughts made him smile, at least for a few seconds. Then he remembered where they were and why they weren't in the car with them, and his smile faded away.

He missed them both so much it made his chest ache, and he hadn't felt like that in a long time. The thought that he may never see Mr. LaRusso again had been gnawing at him since they'd left. He was almost starting to get used to it being there, and he'd spent a large part of the past several hours bouncing back and forth between denying it could ever happen and trying to prepare himself for the possibility. But thinking that he might lose his dad, that he'd never get the chance to fix what was broken between them or apologize for trying to hurt him the way he had, had snuck up on him from nowhere. The chance of losing one of them was too much to deal with; the fear that he was going to lose them both was more than he could take.

Someone could have punched him in the throat while stabbing him in the heart, and it would have hurt less.

"Hawk, enough." Miguel's voice pulled him back from the dark place he'd been letting himself fall into, and he focused on him instead. Maybe Mr. LaRusso and his dad weren't there to take up for him, but Miguel was doing it in their places. And it sounded like he was getting sick of dealing with Hawk, too. He was doing a pretty good job of keeping him from stepping too far over the line, though, just like he'd said he would. And Robby still couldn't deny that they needed his help. "We're getting Aisha. Four is good. Five is better."

Robby had never met Aisha Robinson, and he didn't know much about her. Sam had gone to her house a few times in the past week, so he assumed they were friends. Mr. LaRusso had cheered for her at the tournament, and both he and Mrs. LaRusso had spoken very fondly of her the few times Robby had asked about her. She had to be a good person. Plus, he had seen some of her fights the weekend before, and she had some pretty serious skills. She'd fallen just short of taking Xander Stone out of the semi-finals, and if not for a cheap last-ditch sweep, she'd have done it.

She'd be a strong addition to their little "search and rescue" team.

Hawk leaned back, put his hands behind his head, and propped his feet up on the armrest between the front seats. "Well, _maybe_ ," he said, with a pointed look at the rearview mirror. Robby caught his eye only for a second before looking back at the road. "If someone wasn't too hurt to fight at his best, four would be enough."

Robby ground his teeth, but he still didn't speak. He wanted to point out whose fault it was that his shoulder was injured in the first place, and he wanted to tell him what a cheap shot it had been, but a glance at Miguel stopped him from doing it. Arguing back would escalate beyond anything that could be handled while driving in a car together, and in the end, that wouldn't have done anything other than cause more bullshit that didn't matter and waste more time they didn't have.

"Shut up, Hawk." There was a warning in both Miguel's voice and his eyes. His tone and expression said he wasn't going to take much more before he had Robby pull over and handled things himself. "We can do this without you."

Hawk threw his hands into the air dramatically and sat up again. "Come on, Miguel! What's he even gonna do, huh? Smack the guy with his one good arm? That'll be a big help. Really badass."

"Jesus Christ, Eli."

Robby had never heard the voice before, but he'd only met that Kev kid about ten minutes earlier. He knew even less about him than he did Aisha, and he hadn't seen any of his matches at the All Valley. He looked over at Miguel, who had turned around slowly in his seat and was staring at Kev with wide eyes and an open mouth. Hawk's reaction, visible in the mirror, wasn't much different. He had no idea why they both looked so surprised.

"Stop being such a goddamned asshole."

A smile spread across Miguel's face, and he reached into the seat behind him. He held his fist up, and Kev bumped it with his. "Nice," Miguel said. As he turned back around, he glanced over at Hawk with a smirk. "You heard Kev," he said. "Stop being an asshole." He settled back again, and the inside of the car fell into an awkward but merciful silence.

It didn't last long.

"Can we at least listen to some music?" Hawk asked. "I know this thing's gotta have one hell of a stereo. What's it got? Like twenty speakers?"

"There!" Miguel said suddenly, jumping forward in his seat and pointing at a mostly-hidden driveway to the left side of the road. "Right there."

Robby turned where Miguel had indicated, passing the car between the massive gates and even bigger trees silently. If not for how much time he'd spent at the LaRussos', he'd have been intimidated by the length and width of the driveway, what looked like a golf course on either side of it, and the sheer enormity of the house that stood at the end of it. And though he may not have been completely awe-struck by it, he was still incredibly impressed. Miguel, in the seat next to him, looked equally amazed. Kev was once again silent in the back seat, but both he and Hawk had leaned slightly forward.

"Damn," Hawk muttered. "Aisha lives here?"

Miguel nodded. "This is the address she gave me," he said.

"Did she tell you where she'd be?" Robby asked. Those were the first words he'd said since Hawk had gotten in the car, and he expected some kind of response to them, but he didn't get one. He turned the wheel slightly and eased the car around the huge circle drive and the large fountain that stood in the center of it. "This place is huge. Are we supposed to just find her?"

"Front door," Miguel answered. "She said she'd be watching for us, and ..." As if on cue, the massive wooden door opened, and Miguel smiled. "There she is. Stop here."

Robby did so, shifting the car into park but not turning it off. Miguel turned around in his seat. "Hawk, Kev, you guys stay here." He tapped Robby on the shoulder. "Robby, come with me."

Robby nodded and tossed his seatbelt off. He flashed a small, grateful grin at Kev before he climbed out, but he didn't spare so much as a glance at Hawk. By the time he'd gotten out of the car and closed his door, Miguel was already halfway up the sidewalk to where Aisha was standing.

"Aisha, this is Robby Keene," he said quickly, gesturing back at him as he walked. "Robby, Aisha Robinson."

"Hey," Robby said with a shy grin.

Aisha's eyes widened when she looked at Robby, but she didn't look at him hatefully, like Hawk did. She looked more surprised than anything. She turned back to Miguel with a clearly confused look on her face. "What the hell ...?"

"No time to explain," Miguel answered. "We're in a hurry. But we've got a big problem, and we really need your help."

Aisha nodded and stepped forward, but she kept looking back and forth between them. "I'm listening," she said. "But you are gonna tell me why the two of you are here together, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Miguel said, waving his hand through the air. "We're okay now. Me and Robby. And Hawk and Kev are in the car. And it's all, well, mostly all good. Hawk's being a dick. But when isn't he?"

"Miguel, what is going on?"

Miguel repeated the same story he'd told Hawk and Kev at the park, but he recited it more quickly, without interruption, and he was able to leave out a lot of the extra details. When he was done speaking, Aisha was fully aware of the facts of the situation. Like Hawk, she had jumped to volunteer at the mention of helping his dad, but unlike him, she didn't argue or protest in the slightest at the prospect of helping Mr. LaRusso, too. She seemed to be equally worried about and invested in saving both of them.

"And how much time have we got?" she asked.

Miguel shook his head and shrugged. "We don't know. We haven't been able to get hold of either of them since we left. We're kinda flying blind right now."

"And how long have you been gone?"

Miguel shrugged again and looked to Robby for the answer. "Close to two-and-a-half hours," he said softly. "And it's at least forty-five minutes from here to get back to where my dad's car is."

Aisha nodded in acknowledgement of both the timeline and the importance of getting back to the mountain as quickly as possible. "Let me get my jacket," she said. She turned and jogged back to the door.

Robby turned to Miguel once she'd gone back inside the house. "That was easy," he said.

"Yeah," Miguel answered. "I knew it would be. Aisha's really great. I knew she'd help before I even ..."

The sound of another car coming up the driveway caught their attention, and they both turned toward the sound. Robby recognized the white BMW immediately, and from the look on his face, so did Miguel.

"Oh, shit." Miguel turned back to Robby, his eyes suddenly wide. All the blood had drained from his face. "Oh, shit, Robby, that's ... What do we ...?"

Robby shook his head. He had no idea how to deal with the new arrival. Their only saving grace was that she couldn't see them from where she was parking. So long as neither of them moved, she wouldn't. At least, not until she got to the sidewalk.

But just because she wouldn't see them, it didn't mean she wouldn't know they were there. She would see the car they were driving. She was going to walk right past it.

"Shit," Miguel muttered again. "Shit, shit, shit!"

Aisha came back out of the house, closed the front door behind her, and walked quickly down the steps to greet the either unexpected, unremembered or just unmentioned guest. They all heard the car door open, and Robby closed his eyes in anticipation. There was nothing they could do to avoid what was about to happen, and even if they could have, they'd only have been delaying the inevitable.

"Aisha?" she called out as she crossed the driveway. "Why is my dad's car ...?"

She rounded the front of the Audi, eyeing it with curious surprise. Then she looked up the sidewalk, saw Robby and Miguel standing there together, and she froze. Her eyes moved back and forth slowly between them. "Miguel?" The hurt in her voice when she said his name was equalled only by the shock in it when she said, "Robby?" She shook her head, probably not believing what she was seeing but also unable to deny it. "What are you ...?"

"Sorry, Sam," Aisha said quickly. She walked up behind the boys, grabbed them each by the arm, and started steering them toward the Audi. "We'll have to hang out later. Something came up. Got something important to do. I'll call you."

"No, wait. Aisha! Stop!" She stepped to the side and put herself between the three of them and her father's car. "What's going on here?"

She again looked from Miguel to Robby and then to Aisha. None of them answered her. She finally turned and looked into the car, clearly expecting Mr. LaRusso to be sitting in it. Of course, he wasn't there, and two people who shouldn't have been in it were. When she turned back around, her eyes were huge but also full of fire, and she took a determined step forward. "Where's my dad?" she demanded. She looked to each in turn, waiting for the answer that none of them were prepared to give.

When she didn't get one, she focused on the person most likely to respond. Robby stared at his feet, then glanced up at Miguel, then ducked his head again. He bit his lip as she took several more steps directly toward him, and he knew. He just knew. She was going to ask him, and damn it, he was going to tell her. He didn't want to, but there was nothing else he could do.

"Robby, where's my dad?"

* * *

"Damn."

It was an underwhelming response to what he'd just heard, but it was the only word he could force past his lips. He'd known Kreese wasn't a nice guy – the man had tried to kill him after all – but what he'd been willing to do to punish Daniel for daring to win a karate tournament ... It was terrifying.

"Damn," he said again.

It wasn't any more impressive a response the second time.

He shook his head as he carefully pulled the final splint strap into position under Daniel's leg, just below his knee. They'd saved that one for last, knowing it would be the most painful. His ankle and his upper thigh had been the easiest, and they had lulled them both into a false sense of security. Getting the one above his knee into position and tied off had quickly brought that illusion to an end. It hadn't mattered how slowly Johnny had gone or how gentle he'd tried to be. Daniel had still needed several minutes to recover from it. The last one was going to be worse, and Daniel was going to have to get through it with no kind of pain relief.

Johnny didn't even have any whiskey left to give him.

And on top of all that, Daniel had chosen to distract himself by telling Johnny who Mike Barnes was, where he'd come from, and what he, John Kreese, and the man named Terry Silver had done thirty-three years earlier. It had started out disturbing, and it had turned into a full-blown horror story pretty damn fast. He'd never imagined. He'd thought Daniel's hatred of Cobra Kai was an overreaction to the All Valley. He'd thought he was exaggerating, with the way he'd acted like Cobra Kai was some horrible, terrible, poisonous "thing." He'd had no idea.

Being banned for life by the All Valley Board hadn't been punishment enough.

The worst part was the way Daniel told it – distant, dispassionate, detached. Like he was telling Johnny about something that had happened to someone else instead of describing something that had been done to him. Like he hadn't been the pawn in an elaborate, sinister and seriously fucked up game of revenge. And he had noticed gaps, too, like there were parts Daniel had, for whatever reason, left out, particularly when it came to talking about that Terry guy. It all left Johnny's mind spinning.

He felt like a bigger asshole than usual. All the years, all the decades, that he'd spent sliding into darkness because of some harsh words and a couple of bad encounters with John Kreese on one day in December 1984, and Daniel had lived through all that? He'd endured months of hell. Manipulation. Torture. Mind games. Brainwashing. And he'd been a freaking sixteen-year-old kid.

"No wonder you hate me," he muttered.

"I don't," Daniel protested through clenched teeth. "Don't hate you. 'Cause it wasn't you. Told you. It was ..."

"Cobra Kai." Johnny finished the sentence for him. "You were right, LaRusso. We'd all be better off without it. Especially you."

"And you," Daniel said. "Got it pretty bad. But never tried to kill me."

"No." He spoke the word slowly, drawing it out. He wrapped the t-shirt strip around the branch on the inside of Daniel's leg gingerly. Just like the others, it was three inches shorter than it had been the first time, which meant to get the splint stable and secure, he was going to have to pull it tighter than it had been originally. And it was going to have to go right under his kneecap. That was the part that neither of them was looking forward to. " _They_ never tried to. _They_ just threatened to. Repeatedly." He coughed. "I'm the one who tried."

"You were a kid, Johnny."

"Yeah. And so were you." He lifted his head and looked Daniel directly in the eye. He didn't know why he felt so strongly that his next words needed to be spoken out loud, but he knew they did. "You were just a damn _kid,_ Daniel."

Daniel held his gaze for a few seconds before nodding reluctantly, whether in acknowledgment or agreement, Johnny didn't know. Then he shrugged. "And you never _tried_ to kill me," he said. "You just kinda almost did. Coupla times. On accident."

Johnny snorted and turned back to his task. "Like that matters?"

"Didn' then," Daniel admitted. "Does now."

"Why?" It was one word, but it stood in for a thousand questions he couldn't wrap his head around the answers to. He'd let Daniel decide which of those thousand questions he was asking.

"'Cause today, Mike's tryin'." He picked the obvious one, but that was okay. It was probably the only one he had an answer for. "And you're tryin' ... to stop him. Means ... somethin'. To me."

Johnny didn't think it meant much, but if Daniel thought it did, he wouldn't argue with him. There was no time, anyway. The cloth strip was in place, the branches were positioned, and all that was left to do was pull the ends together and tie them off. He glanced up at Daniel's face quickly and then back at his knee. "You ready for this?"

Daniel bit his thumbnail and shook his head quickly. "No," he answered honestly. "But what choice've I got?"

"Good point," Johnny admitted with a small nod. "Okay. Let's get it over with. Whenever you're ready. Just tell me when."

Daniel planted his right foot flat against the ground, wrapped the fingers of his left hand around one of the exposed roots at the base of the tree, and pressed his right hand against his side. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back for a few seconds. He took two long breaths, as deeply as he could manage, then he opened his eyes and lifted his head again. "Okay," he said with a small but determined nod. "Do it."

Johnny moved his hands as quickly and gently as he could, but it didn't matter. There was no avoiding the massive amounts of swelling and discoloration he was pulling those strips across. He didn't look up, and he neither needed nor wanted to. He could hear Daniel crying – not gasping, not groaning, but crying – beside him. He was trying to do it silently, trying to keep it hidden, but he couldn't. Johnny knew he wasn't supposed to hear it, so he pretended he didn't. He wanted to apologize, but no amount of apologies could make what he was doing any easier, so he kept his mouth shut.

"Stop. Please." No screams. No shouts of pain. "It hurts ... please. Johnny, please." Just a shaky, whispered, broken plea that he couldn't answer. "Please, be done. Oh, God, please. Johnny ... stop." Daniel's whole body shook under his hands. "Please, stop. I can't ... please ... Johnny ..."

He swore to himself that he would do anything in his power to make sure he never heard those words again. Daniel LaRusso didn't beg. For anything. It just wasn't right.

The second the knot was tied, he sat back on his heels and grabbed Daniel's arm to steady him before he toppled over.

"Okay," he said. "It's over, Daniel. I'm done. It's okay. It's over."

He wasn't surprised when Daniel leaned to the side, and he kept hold of him to keep him from falling. He wasn't alarmed that his stomach had decided to turn itself inside out in reaction to the pain. He'd expected it, and he was ready to offer what help and support he could. He hadn't anticipated anything beyond dry heaves, because as far as he knew, Daniel's stomach was and had been empty for a long time. He'd thrown up the hot dogs he'd eaten for lunch at the tree, and the whiskey he'd gotten into him should have been long-since gone.

The way Daniel was coughing and sputtering said that something was coming up, though, and he didn't think that was a good sign.

When the retching stopped, Johnny helped him sit back up, and Daniel collapsed against the tree. His eyes were half-closed, he was trembling and whimpering, and there was blood running from the corner of his mouth.

Johnny's shock that Daniel's stomach had something in it turned to horror over what it was.

He couldn't speak. He could barely breathe. He didn't know what to do. He'd seen the current state of the hole in Daniel's side, so he knew what was festering beneath his skin. And suddenly, all the questions he'd been refusing to ask were staring him in the face. They wouldn't let him ignore them any longer. How deep had that blade gone? Just what, exactly, had it torn into? What kind of damage had it done? Where was the infection coming from? How much longer did Daniel ...?

"Hey, you, um ..." As he'd been doing all day, and would most probably continue to do for the rest of it, he shoved the subject to the back of his mind and avoided it entirely. Daniel's eyes slid all the way open, and Johnny gestured weakly at his own face. "Ya got somethin' ..."

Daniel ran his hand across his mouth absently. He glanced at it as he moved to wipe it on the ground, but when he saw the blood, he froze. He stared at it, his face devoid of both color and expression, for far longer than Johnny was comfortable with.

"Daniel?"

Daniel jerked his head up quickly. For a second, Johnny thought he saw fear in his eyes, actual terror, but then he blinked, and it was gone. The fake, tired smile was back. "I musta ... bit my tongue ... huh? Or ... somethin'."

He was lying. They both knew it, and Johnny didn't like it. In fact, he hated it. But if that's what Daniel needed to do, then he'd let him get away with it.

"Yeah," he said. "Or somethin'." He crawled the foot or so to Daniel's side and flopped on the ground next to him.

Daniel didn't seem to be very interested in talking. He was gasping for breath every other word. His speech had started slurring again, but it wasn't from drunkenness. He couldn't sit up straight, and his head had tipped to the side, like he just didn't have the strength to hold it up anymore.

That left it up to Johnny to keep the conversation going, but he didn't know what to say. He didn't think there was anything he could say. Maybe they'd finally reached the point where words just weren't necessary.

It was strange. Their entire relationship had been built on words – countless hateful barbs thrown at each other, insults traded, and ultimately pointless arguments about nothing. It was just how they dealt with each other. It always had been, from the moment they'd met. But through it all, through everything, they had never once been anything other than honest. There had been no reason to be anything else.

The silence felt wrong, but maybe it was better than lying to each other.

Johnny turned his head and looked at Daniel, really looked at him, for the first time in hours.

He looked half-de ... exhausted. He was pale, and his hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat. His eyes were so sunken and shadowed that even the one Mike hadn't blackened looked bruised. He was having a hard time keeping them open, and every blink seemed slower than the last. But despite the pallor of the rest of his skin, his cheeks were bright red. The color was spreading down the sides of his neck and across what was visible of his chest above the zipper of his hoodie.

He put his hand on Daniel's forehead again. "Fever getting worse?"

"Yeah ... think ... it's ... maybe ..." His eyes tried to close, but he forced them back open. His head fell against Johnny's shoulder.

"Hey, now." He said it softly, half-heartedly. "Remember that gettin' too familiar thing?"

"Mmhm."

Yes, Daniel remembered. He also didn't care. But that was fine because Johnny didn't really care anymore, either. "How are you feeling?" That was another in the long line of stupid questions he'd asked that day. "No, not how," he corrected quickly. "What. What are you feeling, Daniel?"

"I hurt." It was more a sigh than a sentence, but there was no hesitation in his answer. He had to be pretty far gone to volunteer that information so easily. Either that, or he hated the lying as much as Johnny did. "Cold. Hot. Thirsty. Sleepy." Johnny made note of the fact that he hadn't gone into detail about what hurt or how much, but he probably thought it was too obvious to mention. His knee went without saying, and he hadn't moved his hand off his side since he'd thrown up. "I'm so thirsty. And so ... tired. Dunno why."

"You don't know why you're tired?" Johnny shook his head. "You're kidding, right?"

Daniel's lips twitched, but the smile didn't go any further than that. It didn't even come close to reaching his eyes.

"You've lost a lot of blood." He kept his voice as even and matter-of-fact as he could, just as Daniel had done with his story. "You've got a fever. You're probably dehydrated. And as for the tired thing..." He shrugged and tried a fake smile of his own. "So am I. It's been one of those days, LaRusso."

"Never had ... one of these days." Daniel's blinks were lasting longer than they had only minutes before. He stared straight ahead at nothing, and then he looked up at Johnny. "Don't think I wanna ... have 'nother."

"That makes two of us."

Daniel was shuddering slightly, and every now and then, his whole body shivered. He didn't seem to notice it was happening. Johnny looked from his face down to his leg – to the mangled, deformed knee hiding under the sliced-open jeans and being held together with a couple of sticks and a cut up t-shirt – and then up the mountain. He'd barely gotten up there himself, and he had two mostly functional legs. How the hell was Daniel ever going to make it?

They were so screwed.

There was no part of him that didn't hurt; his body ached and throbbed so badly that he couldn't even tell where one pain ended and the next began. His back and his head were the worst, but they were tolerable, so long as he stayed still. And Daniel ... there was no way to quantify how much pain he was in. But somehow, despite everything, Daniel was still looking at him with those huge brown eyes of his. They were glassy, red-rimmed and bloodshot, but somehow, still filled with ... what even was that? Certainty? Hope? Faith?

He trusted him. Daniel trusted him. After everything he'd done, after everything he'd said, after all the shit he'd put him through, the guy trusted him. He was surrendering the last small bit of control he'd managed to hold on to. Maybe he wasn't doing it gladly or willingly, but he was doing it consciously. He was doing it freely.

The man who'd risked his life to save Johnny's was putting that life in his hands. The least Johnny could do was accept the responsibility he was being given.

"Come here." He reached out, put his arm around Daniel's shoulders, and pulled him closer. "You can't sit like that," he said. "You're gonna hurt your neck."

"I'm gonna ... what?" He was confused, and Johnny didn't blame him. With everything else that was wrong with him, why would he care if he got a stiff neck? He didn't fight or try to stop him, but when he found himself momentarily laying in Johnny's arms, he just couldn't leave it alone. "What's that ... 'bout me ... gettin' too familiar?"

Johnny snorted. If Daniel was still holding on to their weird little normal, then there might be hope for them after all. "Don't push it, LaRusso. Still not hitting on you. No matter how much you want me to."

Daniel's shoulders shook with a small laugh, and then he groaned. He pressed his hand deeper against his side and winced. "You ... say so."

"Yeah," Johnny said with a tight, grim smile. "I say so."

"What ... are you doin'?"

"You're gonna take a nap," Johnny answered. He lowered him the rest of the way down, though not to the dirt. "A real one, not the 'you passed the hell out' kind. And I'm gonna figure out how to get you back up to those trees so we can get moving again."

"No time," Daniel protested weakly. He moved like he was going to try to sit back up. "Can't close ... m'eyes. Don't ..." Johnny put his hand on Daniel's shoulder to hold him still.

"No arguing," he said. "You need it."

"Johnny ..."

"What'd I just say?" Daniel looked up at him. Those eyes still trusted him, but they were also looking for reassurance – that they did have time, that it would be all right, and hell, maybe even a promise that if he closed his eyes, someone would make sure he opened them again. Johnny offered it to him without hesitation.

"I'm gonna take care of this. Okay?" With Daniel's head and shoulders on his thigh, Johnny could feel every tremor of his body, every hitched breath, and the heat of the skin that burned through his jeans. "I'm gonna get us out of this."

Daniel nodded slowly, and for the first time in too long, that tired smile was real. "'kay." He shifted his feet and legs slightly, settling into the new position. "Sleepin' on ... your lap," he said. "This is ... beyond awkward ..."

"Shut up, and go to sleep, LaRusso." Johnny forced the casual tone of voice, and he hoped it was convincing. "Let me think."

Daniel finally let his eyes close all the way, took a deep, shuddering breath, and let it out slowly. He was asleep in less than a minute.

Johnny sighed and leaned his head against the tree.

 _'What are you doing?'_

 _'He needs the rest. He's got a long walk ahead of him.'_

 _'You're really going to make him walk? Look at that knee again. Look at his side, at his face. You think he_ _ **can**_ _?'_

 _'I'm not just gonna sit here and let him ... Robby would never forgive me.'_

 _'Just Robby?'_

He ignored the voice. He wasn't going to follow where it wanted him to go.

 _'He doesn't expect you to save him. You know that, right? He doesn't think you can.'_

He ignored it again.

 _'He's doing this because you want him to. You have noticed, haven't you?'_

He kept ignoring it.

 _'He's trying to save_ _ **you**_ _. He's trying to get_ _ **you**_ _out of this. He's doing it for_ _ **you**_ _. But he was right. You're not doing it for_ _ **him**_ _.'_

He couldn't ignore it anymore.

 _'The fuck do you know?!'_

 _'I know everything you know. I_ _ **am**_ _you. You just make me sound like him.'_

 _'I'm not having this conversation.'_

He closed his eyes.

 _'Yes, you are. You're having it with yourself. I know the truth. And that means you do, too.'_

He curled his fingers in the dirt.

 _'He_ _ **is**_ _dying. You know he is. You don't know what that knife hit, but you know it hit something. You know it killed him.'_

He rolled his head back and forth slowly.

 _'He's still alive.'_

 _'So, it's killing him slowly. That doesn't change what's happening.'_

He kept shaking his head. He wouldn't admit it. Not ever.

 _'Do you know how selfish you're being? Making him keep going?'_

 _'Do you know how little I care?'_

 _'Yes, I do. So admit it. Admit the real reason you're doing this. Admit who you're doing it for. It's not for Robby. And it's not for him.'_

His hands balled into fists on the ground at his sides.

 _'What is he, Johnny? Is he your friend? Your enemy? Or your path to redemption?"_

He ground his teeth together so hard his jaw hurt.

 _"You'll fix everything you've fucked up in the past 34 years if you can save him? That's what you think?'_

 _'Shut the fuck ...'_

 _'Admit it! Say it! Now!'_

Johnny opened his eyes, and he raised his head. He looked down at Daniel – at his closed eyes, his pale skin, the fevered flush on his cheeks.

He bit his lip.

 _'Get it over with.'_

He lifted his shaking left hand and brushed the dark hair away from the sweat-covered forehead gently.

 _'I can't ...'_

 _'Just say it. He can't hear you. He'll never know. And it's not gonna change anything.'_

He swallowed what little spit he had in his mouth, and he took a deep breath.

"I'm gonna take care of you, Daniel," he whispered. "I'm gonna get you out of this. And I'm not gonna let you die. Because ..." He closed his eyes again. "I'll never forgive myself if you do."

 _'That wasn't so hard, now was it?'_

Johnny let his head fall back against the tree again.

 _'Shut up.'_

* * *

"Two blind mice."

They didn't see him.

"Two deaf mice."

They didn't hear him.

"See how they run."

They thought they could get away.

"See how they run."

They thought they could escape.

"One fell down a mountain; his head is not right."

They thought they were going to win.

"One's stabbed in the gut with a tactical knife."

They thought they were going to survive.

"Watch them run and fight for their life."

They had no idea what was coming for them.

"Those two dumb mice."

They didn't see him, but he observed them. Studied them. As he always did. From the concealment of the trees. From the slope above and behind them. From less than a hundred feet away. They didn't know he was there. He'd seen Blondie fall. He'd seen LaRusso risk himself to save him. He'd enjoyed the things he'd witnessed. Watching Blondie beat on a tree during an emotional breakdown was invigorating. Watching LaRusso writhe and weep in agony brought him more happiness than he'd thought it would.

They didn't hear him, but he surveilled them. He'd listened to nearly every word they'd said to each other. He'd heard LaRusso surrender to his inevitable fate, and Blondie's refusal to admit the same. He'd heard the whispered reassurances, the empty promises, the half-truths and bald-faced lies. He'd listened to their arguments. He'd laughed silently at their platitudes.

They didn't feel him, but he basked in their rising and falling emotions, their frustration, their anger, their resignation. He'd savored the sound of their uncertainty. Their pain. Their fear. Of him. Of LaRusso's past, and his part in it. Of Mr. Silver and the old man. Of the future. For the brats. He'd entertained himself with the futility of their hope. Their faith. Their growing trust. In themselves. In each other. He could feel it in his bones. Smell its sweetness. Taste it on his tongue.

He smiled.

There had been no doubt that he would find them. It had only been a matter of time. LaRusso's clever little trick would have worked on someone else. Anyone else. It didn't work on him. All the twists he'd taken. All the turns. All the doubling-back he'd done. All the time and energy and strength he'd wasted going in circles. How confident LaRusso had been that he'd succeeded in what he was trying to do. It had been almost impressive.

Almost.

It was far from the first time he'd been to the mountain. He'd studied every inch of it. He knew every rock, every boulder, every leaf and every tree. One did not succeed in his line of work without a keen attention to detail. One did not play the game until they knew every inch of the playing field. One did not start the hunt without knowing their hunting grounds better than their prey.

If they tried, they lost. And he never lost.

His victory was assured. His win was secured. His success was inevitable. They were alone. Injured. Weakened. Unaware. Unsuspecting. Unprotected. He could strike them both down in seconds. He could earn his pay. He could walk away the undisputed champion of the San Fernando Valley. The old man would never question his loyalty, his ability, or his worth again.

He could wipe them from the game board. Eliminate them from play. Remove them from the field. It would be so simple. So basic. So uncomplicated.

It would be too easy. And not nearly enough fun.

Their pathetic and pitiful dedication to saving each other at all costs had presented him with the perfect strategy. The comfort they had discovered in each other's company had given him ammunition. The strength they thought they gave to and got from each other could be used against them.

LaRusso was his primary target. That would not change. But Blondie had become an attractive one in his own right.

Warning shots weren't his usual style. He considered them a waste of time and focus. They were risky, because they gave the mark a chance at evasion, however slight. But he found himself increasingly wanting to make an exception. He found himself wanting to play a bit more. He found himself not wanting the game to end.

He had two perfect victims right in front of him. They also happened to be the perfect weapons.

His smile widened. He turned away. He slithered out of his hiding place and back up the mountainside silently. When he reached the trail, he turned again, took a deep breath, stomped his feet and kicked at the underbrush.

Mike Barnes had a game to play, after all.

"Red Rover, Red Rover, send Daniel right over!"

* * *

Johnny's head shot up, and his eyes flew open. He hadn't fallen asleep, had he? Maybe he had. But had he imagined that? Had it been real?

"Red Rover, Red Rover, send Daniel right over!"

 _'Oh, yeah. That was real.'_

 _'Fuck!'_

Mike Barnes was coming.

"LaRusso!" he shouted in a whisper, shaking Daniel's shoulder as he did. "Wake up!" Daniel's eyes fluttered, but they didn't open. "Shit!"

Mike was coming down the side of the mountain right in front of them. He was following the same trail they'd used. He'd be standing next to the pile of trees above them any minute. They had to get up. They had to move. They had to hide. That meant he had to get off his ass, get Daniel off his legs, and go ... where?

Johnny pushed himself out from under Daniel as quickly as he could. He kept his hand under Daniel's head, trying to hold it up as he moved, but his back spasmed. Bolts of pain combined with tingling and numbness shot down both of his legs. His hands moved instinctively, one going to his spine and the other planting itself on the ground to keep him from falling forward.

Daniel's head slammed into the dirt. His eyebrows lowered, and his forehead wrinkled, but he didn't open his eyes.

"Ow."

Johnny stretched his legs out behind him one at a time, trying to restore the circulation. His legs had picked a lousy time to fall asleep, but luckily, the pins and needles started fading quickly. He only gave himself a few seconds before he pulled them back under him. "Time to go," he said. He slipped his right arm behind Daniel's shoulders, grabbed his left wrist, and pulled his arm across his neck. "We gotta go, Daniel," he said. "Come on. We gotta go." He wrapped his fingers through Daniel's belt and dragged him to his feet. "I know," he said as Daniel groaned. "Shh. I know. But we gotta go. He's here. Come on."

He started moving, more dragging Daniel than anything. "I know, I know. I told you to go to sleep." He didn't know where he was going, other than away from where Mike was. "I know it sucks, but I need some help. You gotta wake up just a little bit, okay?"

Daniel tried, he really did, but even with the splint, his left leg was completely useless. He couldn't even stand up on his own, let alone walk on it. What they really needed to do was run, but there was no way in hell he was going to be able to do that. He was getting a little more coherent, but that wasn't saying much. He was burning up; the nap hadn't done a damn thing to bring that fever down. His head fell forward as Johnny stood there, holding him up, looking around.

The scenery may have been beautiful under any other circumstances, but all Johnny saw were dead-ends and danger. The undergrowth around the trees on either side of them may have been lovely, with the wildflowers and ivy tangled in it, but all he saw was an obstacle that was too dense to get through. The trees may have soared above them, with their leaves stretching up to the sky, but all he saw was potential cover that was too far away to get to. The sun reflecting from the surface of the lake below them may have been calm and peaceful, but all he saw was ... water. There was water beneath them, and a whole lot of it.

The lake was right there.

"Oh, Daniel!"

They both jerked their heads up and around at the call. If Daniel hadn't figured out what was going on from what Johnny was saying, hearing that voice had made it clear.

"Mike ..." He was shaking so hard Johnny could barely hold on to him, though he had no idea if it was from pain, fever, exhaustion or fear. Honestly, at that point, did it even fucking matter? "Johnny, you ..."

"If this is the part where you tell me to leave without you, save it," Johnny muttered. "Ain't happenin'. I've got ya. You're safe. He's not here yet." He looked around frantically. No, Mike wasn't there yet. But he wasn't far away, and they were standing in the open. The second he reached those trees, he'd be looking right at them. Johnny glanced up the slope, and then he turned toward the edge of the cliff.

"How deep is the lake here?"

"What?"

"The water!" Johnny snapped. "How deep is the water?"

"Dunno. Ten ... maybe ten ... twelve feet," Daniel said. "Why?"

"Daniel, Daniel, who's got my Daniel?" Mike's voice echoed through the trees.

Daniel's whole body shuddered. Johnny pulled him closer.

"This guy is seriously obsessed with you, LaRusso," Johnny whispered. "And not in the happy fun way. He's creeping me out."

Mike above and behind them. The cliff in front. The woods on either side. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Only one direction they could go.

"I'm sorry," Johnny whispered. He stepped closer to the edge, pulling Daniel with him. "This is gonna suck, and I'm sorry, but there's nowhere else ..."

Daniel nodded slowly. "Okay."

Johnny didn't think Daniel had caught on to what he was saying. Or what he was implying without saying. He had to be too preoccupied to know what he'd just consented to. The word had to have been spoken out of reflex, accidental agreement just because Johnny was talking, and he thought he needed to say something back.

"I'm sorry, Daniel." They had no choice. There was no other way. He stared down at the water. The water Daniel had nearly killed himself to keep Johnny from falling into. The water Johnny was going to throw them both into on purpose. It was dumb. It was dangerous. It was crazy.

It was the only chance they had.

"I don't know what else to ..." He glanced back up the slope. Mike's stomping was getting louder. He was getting closer. And he was laughing. "He's right there. We have to ... I'm sorry. We've gotta ..."

He turned his eyes to Daniel, expecting to see confusion, or fear, or that strange blind trust the man had developed in him over the past few hours. He never expected to see a grin.

"Hey ... Butch," Daniel said with panted breaths. "Shut up ... and jump."

Johnny wanted to laugh, in spite of everything. Daniel did understand. And for some strange, insane reason, he agreed.

Johnny let go of Daniel's belt and wrist, stepped behind him, and wrapped his arms around his chest. Daniel responded by grabbing his wrists and gripping them tightly. Johny would have to push them as far out and away from the cliff as he could so they didn't bounce off the face on their way down. He'd have to make sure he hit the water before Daniel did, because he didn't think Daniel's knee would survive the impact if his feet broke the surface first. He had no hint of what might be in that water, no idea if they could make it, and even less of a clue what they would do or where they could go once they were in it, but it was too late to do anything else.

They were out of time.

In one fluid motion, Johnny lifted Daniel up from the ground, spun them so their backs were to the water, and braced his feet against the edge.

"Hold on tight, Kid."

He shut up and jumped.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

The first thing Johnny realized when they hit the water was that it was fucking cold. His instinct on going under was to gasp, and he stopped himself just short of doing so. He spared a fleeting thought to hope that Daniel could do the same. There was an instant sensation of millions of pins and needles stabbing into his skin at one time. If he'd had the presence of mind to notice it, he'd have felt himself shivering.

The second thing he realized was that it was a hell of a lot more than ten or twelve feet deep because once they started going down, they didn't stop. He knew there had to be something under them somewhere, but wherever it was, it was too deep for them to touch. His clothes weighed a hundred pounds more than they had a few seconds before, and his shoes had become anchors, pulling him farther and faster than he'd been ready for. All of that was compounded by the man in his arms, whose body was mostly dead-weight on land, whose clothes and shoes were doing the same thing Johnny's were, and who also had what amounted to a small tree tied to his leg.

 _'Fuck!'_

He needed to get them up and out. His sense of self-preservation screamed at him to let go of Daniel and swim, but he wouldn't. Daniel couldn't make it back to the surface on his own, and if Johnny let him go, he'd sink straight to the bottom of the lake. No way in hell was he letting that happen.

He shifted his grip, hooked his left arm under Daniel's, and grabbed a handful of the front of the jackets. With his free arm, he started slicing through the water. He kicked his legs as hard as he could. They started moving up, but they were moving too slowly. Johnny tried to go faster, but he'd already reached his limit. He was giving everything he had, but it wasn't enough. He was starting to worry they weren't going to make it.

Then Daniel's survival instincts started working, too. His free arm was moving in unison with Johnny's. He could only bend one leg, but he could kick them both. And that was exactly what he was doing.

 _'Atta boy, LaRusso. Swim!'_

It took entirely too long, and Johnny's lungs were screaming when they reached the surface. He threw his head back as they broke through, heaving in such a massive breath that he was instantly light-headed, and he had to hold back the cough that wanted to erupt from his lungs. Less than a heartbeat later, Daniel's head came up the same way. One look at his face told Johnny it wouldn't be a cough coming out of him, and he wouldn't be able to hold it in. He managed to get his right hand across Daniel's mouth just in time to silence the scream he hadn't been able to stop.

"Shh," he whispered into Daniel's ear. "I've got ya. You're okay."

Johnny looked up, wanting to see how exposed they were and praying he wouldn't be looking into Mike Barnes' face. He was both surprised and relieved to realize they'd come up much closer to the cliff than they'd gone in. The rock wall rose from the water less than three feet behind them, and there was an outcropping no more than ten feet above them. It jutted out far enough to keep them from being seen by anyone looking down. He didn't know how they'd avoided bouncing off of that as they'd fallen past, but it wasn't worth wasting time thinking about. They'd made it; that was what mattered. He only had to get them up against the rocks, and they'd be hidden.

He leaned back, dragging Daniel with him as he kicked toward the cliff face. His feet brushed against something solid, and he let his muscles sag somewhat in relief. There was finally something beneath them. He hooked his toes on the rocks and used his legs to pull them against the cliff. He didn't know how wide the ledge was or if there was enough room for Daniel's feet, too, but it was large enough for him to stand on. The water hit him just below his shoulders, which meant their heads were above it. That was all he needed. He could hold Daniel up with the water's help, but he hadn't been looking forward to treading water while doing it.

He glanced up again, checking their position and looking for any sign of Mike, but he couldn't see past the outcropping. If he couldn't see Mike, that meant Mike couldn't see them, either. But it wouldn't matter that he couldn't see them if he could hear them, which he would do if Daniel didn't stop whining like a kicked puppy.

"Quiet!"

He hadn't known it was possible to shout and whisper at the same time until he did. Then he realized he'd done it to a man who was in more pain than he could imagine. His leg and side hitting the surface of the water after falling that far had to have hurt like hell; Johnny's back and shoulder hadn't enjoyed it. Daniel had dropped less than a foot when his knee gave out, and that had made him scream and zone out for at least four or five minutes. On top of that, the water was so bitter it felt like flames against Johnny's skin. How much worse was that for Daniel, as high as his fever was?

And Johnny was ordering him to shut up about it.

"I'm sorry," he sighed. "I know it hurts. But you gotta be quiet, Daniel."

Daniel wrapped his right hand around Johnny's arm and nodded. He understood what they were facing, and he was doing his best. Daniel tensed his muscles, trying to keep himself from shaking. He bit his lip to stop the whimpers and moans. But Johnny had to face the fact that what he was expecting Daniel to do wasn't possible. At least, it wasn't possible without help. He kept his hand across Daniel's mouth, pulled his head back against his shoulder, and tightened his left arm around him.

"Relax." He kept his voice soft and the word as gentle as he could. His intention was to make a suggestion, not give another command. "Lean into the cold. Don't fight it. It gets better."

"Oh, Daaaannniel …"

Mike's sing-songy words floated down from above, startling them both. Johnny couldn't stop himself from looking up again. He still couldn't see anything but the bottom of the outcropping, but he didn't have to see him to know he was standing right above them.

The effect the voice had on Daniel was instantaneous. He jerked his head up, dug his fingers into Johnny's wrist, and held his breath.

"Where aaaare you, Daniel?"

"Breathe," Johnny whispered. "We're safe. You're fine. But you gotta breathe. Because I ain't kissin' you if you stop."

Daniel closed his eyes, and his head thumped against Johnny's shoulder again. Silent tears rolled down his cheeks as the pain he couldn't scream out found an outlet.

Johnny let his eyes fall closed, and he rested the side of his head against the back of Daniel's. He'd let him have his cry, and he wouldn't say a damn word about it. They both needed one, and they both deserved one, but Johnny didn't have time. He had one job: get Daniel off the mountain. He might think about crying after he was done with that.

So, he let Daniel cry while he concentrated on keeping them hidden and keeping their heads above the water, all while whispering stupid platitudes in his ear.

"It's okay. You're okay. I got ya. Just hold on."

"I'm coming for you, Daniel!"

"Fuck this son of a bitch." He didn't realize he'd said that out loud until Daniel nodded in agreement.

"I will find you. And when I do, you'll be all alone. You know Blondie won't save you. He helped me the first time. He'll help me again."

Daniel stiffened in his arms, and that pissed Johnny off. They were having enough trouble getting from Point A to Point B as it was, and that was with them trusting each other. The last thing they needed was for Daniel to give in to Mike's stupid mind games and start doubting him again. He tightened his arm around Daniel's chest and his hand across his mouth as he glared up at the overhang in hatred.

"I'm right here." He spoke the soft words to the sky, but he knew Daniel heard them. "I'm not helping him." He still had that nagging doubt that he had helped him, but he hadn't done it on purpose, so it didn't count. "He's lying. Don't listen."

"You can't run forever!" The words were softer, and the echoes died faster. He was moving away. "You will have to stop sometime!"

Daniel started struggling, not only shaking but fighting, pressing his shoulders into Johnny's chest, and shaking his head. He was trying to say something, but through Johnny's hand, the sounds came out as nothing more than muffled grunts and groans.

Johnny didn't look at him, instead keeping his eyes on the cliff face, half-expecting Mike to come back and jump into the water with them. He tightened his hold again. "Not yet. Give it a minute," he said. "Let him leave."

Daniel wrapped both hands around Johnny's fingers and tried to pull them away from his face, but he wasn't nearly strong enough. Johnny had no idea what was making him freak out, but he had to get him calmed down.

"Stop it!" he whispered forcefully. "You gotta wait. We don't know he's gone."

Daniel kicked his legs wildly, and his right heel connected with Johnny's shin.

"Ow, shit! Damn it, LaRusso, stop kicking me!" Daniel was growing increasingly difficult to keep hold of, making their already precarious position even more dangerous. "What the hell, man? Stop!"

And then Daniel bit him.

Johnny jerked his hand away, and even after the warnings he'd given Daniel about being quiet, he only just stopped himself from shouting in pain and surprise. It wasn't until he heard Daniel's desperate gulps of air, drawn in with such force that they nearly plunged his face into the water, that Johnny realized what he'd done.

He hadn't only had his hand across Daniel's mouth. He'd had it across his nose, too.

"Shit!" He pulled Daniel's head away from the water and back against his shoulder. "Shit, shit, shit. I'm sorry. I didn't know I … shit!"

Daniel's eyes were open, and he was staring up at the sky without blinking. But his chest heaved, and his whole body shook with every breath he drew into his lungs.

"LaRusso?" Johnny shook him. "Hey, man, say …"

"Want … me breathe … or not?" The words were forced out between chattering teeth, and they rode on ragged gasps for air, but they were relevant and aware, and there was no heat in them. He was okay. And more importantly, he was trying to joke about it, which meant they were still okay.

"Yeah, I want you to breathe." Johnny shrugged, burying his guilt and embarrassment under the words. He had to be more careful than that. He'd been so worried that Daniel might believe he'd ever help Mike kill him that he'd almost killed him. Because that made perfect sense. "Guess that wasn't very clear while I was suffocating you, huh?"

"Rude," Daniel gasped. "At the very … least."

"You okay?" Asking stupid questions had become so common that Johnny wasn't even going to try keeping count of them anymore. "Your knee still in one piece?"

Daniel didn't lift his head, but he nodded somewhat. "More or less," he answered. "Far as I can tell. Much as it was. Mostly numb."

"What about the rest of you?"

"I'm cold," Daniel answered. He lifted his head, looked at the surface of the lake, and sighed. "And wet."

"Yeah. Jumping into a lake will do that to ya." Johnny glanced around, trying to get his bearings. He pushed away from the cliff with his feet and turned them in the water, so they were facing it. "You're just never happy, are you?" he asked distractedly. "Half an hour ago, you were bitching about being hot. Fixed that, and now you're bitching about being cold."

Daniel snorted.

"Where the hell are we?" He thought he knew, but he wanted to confirm it before he started swimming. "Can we get out anywhere near here?"

Daniel shook his head. "Not … for a while …"

"Okay. Can we get to camp from here?"

That got a nod, and Daniel lifted his arm weakly and pointed in the same direction Johnny was looking. "That way," he said. "Not far. I can see it. The shore. And the trees. Lake comes up. Right by it."

"Where you and Robby were when I showed up?"

Daniel nodded again.

"All right." Johnny changed his position in the water again, turning so he was on his right side. He pulled Daniel against his chest with his left arm, and as he'd done to get them up, he used the other to move them forward. Daniel tried to help, but every time he moved his arm, his face dipped below the surface, and he threw Johnny's rhythm off.

"Relax," he said. "I got this. Let me do the work. You just worry about not drowning. Okay?"

"I can … do that."

Daniel was still shivering, and his teeth were still chattering. Johnny allowed himself a second to wonder when he'd stopped doing that himself and to question whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, but he didn't give it any more thought than that. He probably didn't want to know the answer, anyway.

He turned his full attention to swimming. It took him a few strokes to find the most effective method to compensate for Daniel's weight and only being able to use one arm. Daniel was right about one thing, though. His back, ribs, shoulder and various aches and pains that had plagued him on the mountain weren't bothering him in the water. He couldn't feel them at all; he was completely numb. The only thing that still hurt was his head, and even that wasn't as painful as it had been. At least he could think a bit more clearly.

Daniel's eyes started to close, and Johnny shook him again.

"Nope," he said. "Keep your eyes open. Need you to tell me when we're getting close. Don't want to miss our exit."

Daniel nodded once more. "This sucks."

That made Johnny smile, though it wasn't the least bit funny. Never had two words summed up one day so perfectly.

"It does, but cheer up, LaRusso. Look on the bright side."

"What … bright side?"

"Well, your body temperature has to be lower. As cold and wet as you are, at least you're not walking on that leg. And there's no way you're still thirsty."

The sound that passed Daniel's lips was part snort, part gasp and part moan, but it was clearly meant to be a laugh. "Some … bright side …"

"Take the W, LaRusso. We haven't had very many."

"This is … true."

He'd gotten into a comfortable pattern, and he was moving them through the water at a much faster pace than he'd expected. They were going straight to the camp. Mike would need to make his way not only down the mountain, but also around any obstacles he might run into. If it would have taken Daniel fifteen minutes to walk from where they were, with as well as he knew that mountain, it should take an inexperienced person like Mike at least twice that long. If Daniel could already see where they were going, then they were only a few minutes away. When they got out of the water, they should be at least half an hour ahead of him.

"We're gonna make it, Daniel," he said. "We're getting the hell outta here. There's your bright side." He shifted his left arm across Daniel's chest, tightened his hold on the jacket, and kept swimming. "Hold on to that."

* * *

"You left him there?!"

The accusation wasn't unexpected, nor was the fact that she'd aimed it solely at him, but Robby's heart jumped into his throat all the same.

"It wasn't like that, Sam. We didn't have a choice." She was shaking her head at him, and the look on her face said she wasn't listening to a word he said. "You weren't there. You don't understand. You have to believe us. We —"

She sliced her hand through the air and cut him off. "You know what? It doesn't matter why you did it. What matters is we're here, and he's there, and we have to fix it. That's all." She turned on her heel and stalked toward the Audi. "Let's just go."

Kev and Hawk saw her coming, and they both wisely jumped into the back seat without a word.

"But, Sam," Miguel said carefully from behind Robby. "It's your dad."

"So?" She spun back around and pointed at Robby. "It's your dad, too, right?" To Miguel, she said, "And your sensei." And again to Robby, "And yours. If I can't go because it's my dad, neither of you can go, either." She tipped her head as if daring them to argue with her.

Neither of them did.

"Actually, if we're looking at it like that, then none of us can go. We're all too invested. And we should forget the whole thing right now."

"No!" Miguel and Robby protested in unison.

"Good. We all agree. You're going; I'm going. So let's go." She dismissed them both and walked away again.

Robby and Miguel both turned to Aisha, hoping to enlist her help in getting Sam to stay behind, but she shook her head at them.

"She's got a point. And I agree with her." She shrugged. "All of us or none of us, and all of us is definitely the better choice." She gave them a tight smile, then turned and walked toward the car.

Sam stalked straight to the driver's door and opened it. She wasted no time getting in, and she slammed it behind her.

That left Robby and Miguel standing together on the sidewalk.

"This is a terrible idea," Miguel said softly. "I really don't think she should … I mean, he's her dad, Robby. What if he's really hurt? What if it's really bad?"

"It is." Robby spoke the words with the same certainty he'd had from the beginning. He'd been making progress on getting the images from his nightmare to leave him alone, but all the talk about Mr. LaRusso being hurt had brought them back with a vengeance. If he closed his eyes, he saw nothing but blood. He shook his head to chase the memory away again. "He is hurt," he insisted. "They both are. And we're wasting what little time we have left arguing." He turned to walk to the car. "We have to go."

"What if he's dead, Robby?" Miguel's voice was quiet, and the words were hesitant. He obviously didn't want to say them, but it was equally obvious that he'd been thinking them for a while. "What if he's dead, and we take her up there, and we find —?"

"He's not."

"What if they both are?"

"They're not."

"Robby …"

"We don't have time for this, Miguel!" Robby spun on him. Miguel was the last person he'd have expected to give up on his dad and Mr. LaRusso or argue with him about getting back to the mountain as fast as possible. "They don't have time for this! Look, she's your ex, and you want to protect her, and I get it. Okay? I think it's bullshit, but I get it."

"Bullshit?" Miguel looked offended at that. "How is it bullshit?" he demanded.

"Because she can kick both our asses, and you know it." That was one thing Miguel couldn't argue with. "You said we need badasses, right?" Miguel nodded reluctantly. "Well, the biggest badass we both know just got in that car." He took one step forward and lowered his voice, so there was no risk of Sam overhearing him. "She doesn't need you to protect her. She can handle herself just fine, and she's got every bit as much to lose as we do. There's no good reason to keep her out." He knew Miguel was considering his words and starting to agree with them. "And besides, if we don't get in that car right now, she's going to leave without us."

Miguel sighed. "Okay," he agreed, nodding his head and stepping forward. "Okay, whatever. You're right. Let's go."

"Fine."

Robby turned around, and they both made the short walk back to the SUV. Miguel went around the front; Robby walked to the driver's door and pulled it open.

"Get out, Sam."

"What?" Sam's voice dripped with anger, and Miguel glanced at him across the hood in surprise. "If you think I'm staying here, Robby, you're —"

"You're not staying here," he said. "But you're not driving."

Miguel opened his door and climbed in. Sam put both hands on the steering wheel and stared out the windshield.

"This is my dad's car. I've driven it a dozen times. If this is some sexist crap about girls not being able to —"

"Jesus, Sam, this isn't some 'sexist crap.' This is you don't know where we're going, and I do. You're going, but I'm driving. So move."

She looked like she wanted to keep arguing, but it didn't last long. She nodded her head once in acknowledgment of Robby's point and got out of the car. Aisha scooted over as Sam opened the back passenger door and climbed in beside her, and Robby resumed his place behind the wheel.

Once everyone was settled, and the doors were closed, Robby looked at them in the rearview mirror. "Everybody ready?" he asked.

Five heads nodded in silent unison.

"Great," he muttered, glancing at Miguel as he shifted into drive. "Finally. Let's do this."

* * *

"That seemed easier," Daniel gasped, "when we came up with it."

They both lay on the ground, side-by-side, panting and exhausted. Johnny was flat on his back with his arms out to his sides, and Daniel was on his side with his arms in front of him. Neither had moved from the positions they'd landed in when Johnny's wet shoes had slipped and they'd fallen to the ground.

"Yeah, well. You're still heavier than you look," Johnny announced breathlessly. "And even more when you're soaking wet."

Daniel hadn't gotten the jolt through his side that he expected from being dropped, and he chalked it up to the numbing effects of the water. It had been nice while it lasted, but that almost pleasant, nearly-frozen-but-mostly-pain-free sensation was wearing off quickly. He'd have to move at some point, and the rate at which feeling was returning told him he wanted to do it sooner rather than later.

He pressed his left hand against the dirt and levered himself up far enough to get his right arm under him. He was halfway to sitting before Johnny realized he was moving, opened one eye, and squinted at him.

"Time to go already?"

Daniel nodded, bit his lip, and focused his newly-found but rapidly-fading energy on getting himself upright and stable. Johnny sat up beside him. Daniel felt eyes on him again, but it didn't make him jumpy or nervous. He knew who was staring at him and what his intentions were. At first, it irritated him that Johnny was watching him that closely but not making a single offer of assistance. The least the guy could do was help him sit up. But by the time he'd reached a sitting position, he found himself pathetically grateful that Johnny had let him do such a small thing by himself. He had an overblown and most likely disproportionate sense of pride and a smile on his face.

He also had an ache in his side, a weight on his chest, a floaty sensation in his brain, and sweat pouring down his face. But Johnny's words came back to him, and he took the small win for what it was worth.

Johnny climbed to his feet, smacked the twigs and leaves and some of the mud off his jeans, and looked around. Something in the distance seemed to catch his attention, and he stared at it for a few moments. Then he looked at Daniel and hitched his thumb over his shoulder.

"That's it right there, right?"

Daniel followed Johnny's hand with his eyes and tilted his head in confusion. "What's what right where?"

"Where you and Robby were when I got here?" He turned not just his eyes but his full attention back to the spot, studying it intently. "Where you did that thing with your arms?"

"Oh." Daniel glanced over and nodded. "Yeah. That's it."

Silence fell around them, and Daniel closed his eyes. His mind wandered back in time, to when he and Robby had been standing less than 20 feet from where he was sitting. That was where he'd managed to reach Robby through his fear. That was where he'd shown him how to center himself to regain balance and focus. That was where he'd begun to think he might be a decent teacher. That was where he'd sensed Mike for the first — no, the second time. That was where he'd let Johnny's arrival distract him so much that he'd dismissed the genuine threat in the woods.

That was where he'd been standing when he'd gotten three innocent people — two of them children — sucked into Mike's sick game.

"How far is it from the camp?"

"Hm?" Johnny's question pulled him out of the well of guilt he'd been sinking into. He blinked his eyes languidly as the question sank into his suddenly very addled brain. "Oh, yeah. Right up there." His teeth were still chattering, his body still hadn't shaken off the effects of the cold water, and he was having such a hard time catching his breath he was lucky to get any words out at all. He waved his hand. "Up that path. You walked it. You should know."

Johnny nodded absently, still absorbed in his own thoughts. "Yeah. Yeah, I did. Just wanted to make sure I was right." He bent his knees and squatted at Daniel's side. Daniel appreciated that because looking up at him with the sun in his eyes had been starting to give him a headache. "We'll be to camp in, what? Five minutes?"

Daniel nodded. "Go soon, faster than that."

"We're going," Johnny said. "Just gotta do one thing first."

"What's that?"

"Get someone to meet us there." Johnny smiled broadly, reached into his pocket, and pulled something out. "Let's see this thing say there's no signal down here."

Daniel's heart sank.

Johnny flipped the phone open and looked down at it expectantly. The screen stayed black. He pushed a few buttons, but nothing changed. "What the …?" He pressed and held the power button, held it up to his ear, and tapped it against the inside of his other hand. Water poured from every crack and crevice of it, splashed against his skin, and pooled in his palm. The half-excited expression that remained on his face froze there.

Daniel leaned back on his hand. "Cellphones and water. Not exactly friends."

"It's dead." Johnny's voice was empty, and his face was blank. "I killed it." He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with the heel of his empty hand. "An hour ago, we had two phones. I lost yours, and I killed mine, and now, we don't have any."

"Just a phone."

"It wasn't just a phone!" Johnny argued. "It was the one thing I had that could have ended this whole damn thing right now. The one thing that could have gotten us some damn help, gotten the cops here and you out of here. It was the one thing I had to keep alive, and I fucking killed it."

"But saved us." Johnny lifted his head, and Daniel smiled at him weakly. "Right?"

Johnny shook his head. "Barely!" He pushed himself to his feet and spun toward the lake. "I almost killed you, too!"

He pulled his arm back, stepped forward with one foot, and threw the phone as hard as he could. Daniel rolled his eyes at the distant splash.

"Johnny."

"You need an ambulance," he growled as he turned back around. "You should be in the hospital. You needed to be there hours ago. All I had to do to get you there was make one phone call, and I can't even do that, because I screwed it up!"

"Johnny?"

"What?!"

"Wasting time. Need to go. To the hospital. Both of us."

Johnny leaned his head back and rolled his shoulders. He took a deep breath, lifted his head again, and sighed as he shook it. "You okay to walk?"

Daniel tipped his head up and smirked. "Dumb question." Then he lifted his right arm. "Get me up," he said. "Keep me there. I'm good."

"Yeah," Johnny said with a huff. "You look it." He wrapped one hand around Daniel's forearm, hooked their thumbs together, braced their feet against each other, and pulled.

Daniel rose swiftly — though not gracefully — to his feet. It took him a few seconds longer than usual to regain his equilibrium, but he managed to stand more or less on his own two feet without falling over. Johnny kept a steadying hand on his shoulder, and once he'd stopped wobbling, he lifted Daniel's left arm and ducked under it.

Daniel hissed and flinched as soon as he touched Johnny's shoulders. Even through the fabric of both the jacket and sweatshirt, the shredded hamburger that was the inside of his left arm was reminding him of its presence.

"Damn it," Johnny muttered as he pulled away. "How are we gonna do this with your arm all torn up?" Johnny didn't seem bothered by the fact that he was doing most of the talking for both of them, but Daniel found it a little disconcerting that his thoughts were coming out of Johnny's mouth. "It's obviously hurting you. You barely used it in the water. You haven't used it at all since we got out. And if it hurts that bad, just touching my neck with it …?"

"I'll deal." Daniel didn't like that plan, but they didn't have time to come up with another. They didn't have any other options anyway. Using his other arm would pull on his side too much, and there was no way he was going anywhere on his own. "Ignore it."

Johnny sighed in frustration. "Is there a single part of you that isn't beat to hell?"

"No," Daniel answered with a shake of his head. "Not really." He held his arm up, but Johnny just looked at him, reluctant to touch it. "Come on." He would have waved it at him if he'd had the energy. "Let's go."

Johnny sighed again, that time in resignation. "Okay." He gently grasped Daniel's wrist, lifted it the rest of the way up, and stepped back under. "Yeah, okay." He settled into place and wrapped his right hand through Daniel's belt again. "You got it, LaRusso." Daniel didn't know how he held the hiss in that time, but he did. By the time Johnny took the first step forward, he'd almost blocked the pain from his mind completely.

"Let's go."

* * *

The atmosphere in the car was somber and subdued. Everyone's thoughts seemed to be a hundred miles away, even though they had to be thinking about their immediate futures. Even Hawk had dropped the attitude he'd had when Sam had gotten in the car, and he was listening and contributing to the plans they were making.

Sam still didn't know exactly what had happened, but the picture she'd drawn in her mind wasn't a pretty one. She knew they had more details, but she hadn't started pressing for them yet. Whatever happened wasn't just bad; it was bad enough that Robby and Miguel had set their personal issues aside and work together to fight back against it. She'd never imagined she'd see them even speak to each other, let alone back each other up.

But that was not her primary concern.

"I don't understand. You didn't see him get hurt?" Robby and Miguel shook their heads in unison. "And they both told you he was okay?" The shakes became nods. "Why don't you believe them?"

"Because they were lying," Miguel said with a shrug.

"But you don't have any proof, do you? So why would you think that?"

The look that passed between Robby and Miguel said there was more than one answer to that question, and though they both knew the real one, neither of them wanted to share it with her.

"Just a feeling," Robby finally said. "Something, like, something I've heard, or maybe … seen … before. Somewhere." He glanced at Miguel and then shook his head. "I can't explain it, Sam. I just know."

She tilted her head slightly. He had answers, and she needed them, and she wouldn't let him off that easily.

Robby caught her eye in the mirror and sighed. "Okay. The big thing was his voice. I mean, he sounded normal, but it was fake normal? I got the same impression from him before we knew Mike was there. I knew something was going on. His voice didn't sound right. Does that make sense?"

That made a lot of sense. "Like he was pretending." It wasn't a question. She knew precisely what Robby was talking about. "So you wouldn't know there was anything wrong."

"Yeah." That answer came from Miguel. "I may not know him as well as you two do, and I didn't pick up on it right then, but I can kinda see it now."

Sam knew what they'd heard because she'd heard it, too. Too many times to count. And she knew Robby had seen and heard it at least once before.

She bit her lip and looked back and forth between them before starting her explanation. "My dad, he gets headaches sometimes," she said. "Migraines. And they're awful. My mom closes their bedroom curtains, and she turns all the lights off. We have to be super quiet, and no one can go upstairs until he comes down. And sometimes not even then, because sometimes, she'll make him go back up and go back to sleep."

Robby's eyes narrowed but then widened in sudden understanding. "That just happened!" he said. He looked at Miguel quickly before turning back to the road. "Seriously. It was like three days ago."

Sam nodded. "She did that because of his voice. She knew it wasn't gone yet." She'd been hearing that too-perfect, fake-normal tone in her dad's voice for as long as she could remember, but for Robby, having experienced it for the first time only recently, it would be fresh in his mind. "That's how he sounded on the phone?"

Robby's whole face brightened, not in happiness but relief. He had a way to explain how he knew what he knew. "Yes!" he said. "He sounded exactly like that."

"Then you're right." She shrugged. "He's probably hurt. What did the police say when you called them? They're not who told you to come back and get us, right?"

Silence was the immediate answer, followed by a soft, "Um … no one told us to do that. We didn't call anyone," from Miguel.

Sam's stomach dropped, Aisha gasped in surprise, and even Hawk and Kev leaned forward in their seats.

"Why not?" Sam demanded. "You know there's this guy up there with them, you know he knocked Johnny out, you know my dad's hurt. And you didn't bother to call anyone who could help them? How could you be so —?"

"And tell them what, Sam?" Miguel spun in his seat, and he held his hand against his face to mimic a phone. "Hi, yeah, I need an ambulance and the cops to this place on this mountain. No, I don't know the address. No, I don't know if anyone's really hurt, but one of them hit his head, and … No, I don't know if there's any real crime going on, except that guy getting hit, and … oh, yeah, by the way, I'm sixteen." He turned back around, flopped against the seat, and shrugged. "They'd have hung up on us."

Sam rolled her eyes at Miguel's theatrics and stared at the headliner. Robby noticed her expression in the mirror, and he spoke up.

"He's right, Sam," he said. "They wouldn't have believed us. And they wouldn't have sent ambulances for two people we can't tell them for sure are hurt. My dad got up and took off on his own, so how hurt is he? We've heard Mr. LaRusso, but we haven't seen him. And we don't even know where they are."

He did have a point, and in fairness, so did Miguel. That didn't mean she had to like it or admit it.

"Whatever."

She looked over at Aisha, who was holding her phone up. Her message was clear — she agreed with Sam. Curious if that might be true of anyone else, she glanced at the back seat. Kev smiled softly and nodded at her. He agreed with her, too. Hawk seemed to weigh the options and consider his answer before he gave it. Then he shrugged and leaned back in his seat.

"I'm with Miguel and … Robby." She noticed the slight pause before he said Robby's name, but she didn't call attention to it. "I say no."

"No to what?" Miguel looked over his shoulder, then at each of them. He looked to Sam last, and not only did he not turn away, but he lowered his eyebrows at her. "What are you doing, Sam?"

She held his gaze, but she didn't want to speak directly to him. There was too much there. Too much had happened, and it was still too raw. She couldn't just act like everything was fine. But then she remembered what they were discussing, what they were getting ready to do, and why. And she felt like an idiot.

Johnny Lawrence and her dad were … her dad. She saw his smiling face in her mind like he was sitting right next to her, but he wasn't. She felt his hand on her hair as though he was comforting her, but he wasn't. She heard his voice in her mind, imagined him saying, _'Stay calm, Sam. Stay focused. Everything's going to be fine,'_ but he wasn't.

He was missing, probably hurt, and definitely in danger. She closed her eyes and pretended he was at her side.

 _'I'm scared, Dad. I'm really, really scared.'_

 _'There's nothing to be afraid of, Sammy. Just do what I taught you. Breathe. You know what to do.'_

She took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and pushed her hurt feelings aside.

"We have to call someone."

It was Miguel's turn to roll his eyes as he turned away.

"No, Miguel, listen. Listen to me!" She grabbed his shoulder and leaned as far forward as her seatbelt allowed. "Robby, listen. I'll admit you're right, but you know I'm right, too. They need help."

"Why do you think we're going back?" Miguel asked hotly. "We got this, Sam. We promised. We will bring them home." He shook his head and muttered under his breath. "This is why I didn't want you to come."

"Miguel." Robby's voice was quiet, but the warning in it came through loud and clear. "Don't do this now, man."

"No!" Miguel was so angry he was shouting, and Robby flinched. "I told you this was a bad idea. You wouldn't listen to me. We had everything under control without her. We had it handled. And now she's back there saying we can't do this!"

No, Sam realized, Miguel wasn't angry. He was scared. So was Robby. So was everyone in that SUV.

What were they doing? What could they do? They were in way over their heads, and they were all scared. They were just kids.

 _'Everyone gets scared sometimes, Sam. Even me. The trick is to keep yourself from giving in to it. The second you let that fear control you, you've lost. Even if you win.'_

"I'm not saying we can't do it." She tried to keep her voice calm, but her emotions made it impossible. "God, Miguel, do you think I don't want the same thing you do? Do you think I don't want to find this Mike guy and rip him apart? Like you keep telling me, he hurt my dad!" Miguel grimaced. He hadn't expected those words to be thrown back at him, and she hadn't intended to do it. She took a steadying breath and tried again. "I'm not saying we shouldn't go. I just think we need some adults with badges and maybe medical experience for backup."

Miguel shook his head, but it was less defiant and more regretful. "They won't believe us, Sam."

"So what if they don't?" she asked, leaning forward again. "But they might. If they do, then they'll come help. And if they don't, they'll … track my phone and come to arrest me for making a hoax call. Either way, they'll be there."

She didn't intend to sew division between them because what they needed most was unity. But they also needed help.

"What about a compromise?" she offered. "Three of us want to call the police and an ambulance, right? Three don't want to call either. What if I call one or the other?"

He glanced at her over his shoulder, and he seemed to consider it. "Which one?"

"Ambulance," Aisha suggested. "We know Sensei's hurt. We can use that to convince them to come."

"They're not sending an ambulance for a concussion," Hawk argued. "And with Sensei's rap sheet, if we called the cops, they'd probably arrest him instead of that Mike guy, anyway. I say we don't call anyone, and we take care of it ourselves like we were gonna do."

"They're both hurt."

Sam turned her head and blinked at the back seat in surprise. She'd known Kev since third grade, and she'd never heard him say that many words at one time. She didn't remember if she'd ever heard his voice before at all.

"If Robby knows what Mr. LaRusso sounds like when he's hurt, and if that's what he sounded like on the phone, we should err on the side of caution. We should bring an ambulance with us. And if Mike is a real threat, then we'll need the police to take care of him, too. So I still vote for both."

"Robby?"

It was Miguel who said his name. Whatever had happened to and between them that afternoon had done more than make them set their issues aside for a while. It seemed to have erased them. Not only was Miguel asking for Robby's opinion, but he honestly wanted it.

Robby kept his hands on the steering wheel and his eyes on the road. He didn't speak, and it was clear he was considering everything before he did. The car fell into silence as they waited for his answer.

"Police."

He glanced over at Miguel, who tilted his head, waiting for an explanation. Robby took a deep breath and gave him one.

"Mr. LaRusso is afraid of him, Miguel." He said those words so softly that Sam suspected she hadn't been meant to hear them. It wasn't new information to either of them, but it was to her. And the implications of it terrified her.

"I think Kev's right about the cops. We're gonna need their help with Mike. But Aisha and Sam are right, too. We'll need someone who knows more than we do about first aid, and the police'll have medical supplies in their cars. They'll be able to take care of them until an ambulance can get there."

Miguel looked at him for a few seconds before nodding his head. "Fine," he said. "Police then."

Sam leaned back in her seat and lifted her phone.

"Call 911, though." Robby looked at her in the rearview mirror again. "They'll respond faster that way. And if they think it's a prank, they'll be more likely to come looking for us."

"Good idea," Miguel said. "If we're getting them involved in this, the faster they get there, the better."

Sam nodded and pressed the emergency button on her phone.

"Yes, hello. Something's happening, and I need the police. I need a lot of police. Two people have been attacked up in the mountains, and they're missing, and we … my name?" She glanced up at Miguel and Robby, and they both nodded. "LaRusso," she said. "My name is Samantha LaRusso."

* * *

Johnny took a small amount of comfort in how familiar the trees around them seemed. He hadn't paid much attention to them when he'd walked past the first time, or when he and Daniel had run past the second, but they were the first even vaguely recognizable things he'd seen since he'd taken off after Daniel.

How long had it been since he'd stood and watched Mike stab him? Three hours? Three days? Three weeks? It seemed like years. In that time, Daniel's eyes had gone from open to half-mast to closed. He wasn't even pretending to pay attention to which direction they were going anymore. He'd gone from not trusting Johnny to touch him, to allowing him to bandage his wounds, to sleeping on his legs, to letting him lead him — blindly — through the woods.

Johnny wanted to take those as good things, but he knew they weren't. Daniel was only letting him do them because he couldn't do them himself.

The trip that had taken them less than a minute the last time took close to five, but it was worth it. Those trees parted ahead of them like the gates of heaven itself sliding open. For the first time since he and Daniel had walked into the woods together all those hours earlier, Johnny laid eyes on their fire pit, their chairs, and their tents.

The relief that swelled up from his stomach was so overwhelming it nearly knocked him over.

"LaRusso," he said excitedly, shaking Daniel lightly. "Hey, wake up. We're here."

"Hm?" Daniel's eyes fluttered, but he didn't lift his head. "Where?"

"Back at camp."

Johnny's smile grew wider as they took the last step from the path and into the clearing. They were back. They'd made it. He gave himself a second to celebrate their minor victory before shifting his full attention back to what he was there to do.

"Hang in there, Daniel," he said. "We got this now. We're gonna get you fixed up, rest for a few minutes, and then head for my car."

Daniel nodded slowly.

"Where's your sleeping bag?"

Daniel opened his eyes and gave him a look that spoke to his opinion on the stupidity of the question. "My tent. Where else'd it be?"

"Well, I'm gonna have to get it. You don't need to be laying on the ground. It's too cold."

Daniel looked down at himself. His clothes were soaking wet, small drops of water fell from the hair hanging in his face, his jaw was quivering, and his body was trembling so hard it was amazing he hadn't shaken himself apart. He looked back up at Johnny. "Gonna worry 'bout cold? Now?" he gasped out. "Really?"

Johnny rolled his eyes and took a few more steps forward. He disentangled himself from Daniel's arm and propped him up against a tree near the tents. "Don't get smart with me."

"How come you're not … cold as I am?"

Johnny shrugged. He'd been wondering that himself, but he didn't know the answer. Maybe it was because Daniel's fever was so high, and the cold was affecting him more because his body was so much warmer. Or maybe there was more to it than that. Whatever it was, he didn't have time to worry about it. So he said the first thing that came to mind.

"Maybe I'm just stronger than you."

"Are not."

Johnny smirked, and Daniel grinned back at him weakly. Their normal may have been pointless and immature, but it was theirs. If they could keep it going, even half-heartedly, it meant they could hold on. Their hope rested on it. Johnny hadn't admitted it, but he knew it. Daniel had to know it, too. They needed that interaction as much as they needed each other.

At some point, at least one of them needed to acknowledge that.

"You're right, Daniel," he said. "I'm not. I don't know anyone who is."

Daniel's expression changed slightly, and a bit of fear crept into his eyes. Johnny had switched up the script without warning. Daniel hadn't expected or been ready for that, he didn't know what it meant, and it scared him. Johnny smiled, squeezed his shoulder to reassure him, and moved past the moment as though it had never happened.

"Stay here a minute."

Daniel started sliding as soon as Johnny moved his hand away. Johnny caught him by the shoulders before he'd crumpled more than a few inches, and he pushed him back up.

"Come on, LaRusso," he said. "You're gonna have to do better than that. Give me time to get to the tent and back, at least."

Daniel's head bobbed up and down lazily in what was passing for a nod at that point. The slowness of that motion only drew Johnny's attention to how rapidly his shoulders were rising and falling as he inhaled and exhaled. He'd noticed that Daniel's breathing had been speeding up since they'd gotten out of the water, but that was way faster than he'd thought it was.

"Lock your knees … I mean, your knee."

"And? Pass out?"

"No," Johnny answered, drawing the word out. "No passing out. Passing out is bad. Don't do that. Do whatever you need to do to stay on your feet. Just don't fall over."

Daniel shifted position slightly, leaned his left shoulder on the trunk, put his right hand on it for stability, and rested his head on the back of it.

"Go," he breathed. "Got it. Won't fall."

Johnny moved as quickly as he could, which wasn't half as quickly as he wanted to. He was hampered by how slowly his joints were willing to bend and how stiff and swollen his fingers were. He pulled Daniel's sleeping bag out of his tent, and he had it open and spread out before Daniel's balance and strength failed him.

Johnny grabbed him around the chest, turned away from the tree, and lowered him to the ground carefully. Daniel got his arms under him, and the second his hands touched the sleeping bag, he started pushing himself away.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Daniel didn't answer. He kept moving until he was leaning against the tree again but sitting up instead of standing. "Need to look. At your back."

Johnny shook his head. "No. What you need to do is lay the hell down and let me take care of you so we can get out of here."

But, as he'd been saying all day, Daniel LaRusso was a stubborn little shit. "You're hurt, too," he said. Those words took more out of him than they should have. He was having trouble talking and breathing at the same time. "You clean my side. We bandage it again. I'll be …" His eyes slid shut, and his head drooped forward.

Johnny grabbed his shoulder. "What's wrong? You having trouble breathing?"

"Wiped." Johnny didn't know if he was answering the question or finishing his sentence or both. "Be too wiped. To help you." Daniel opened his eyes and lifted his head, and though he looked half a second from keeling over, Johnny couldn't ignore the determination on his face. "Let me see. Your back." That wasn't a request; it was an order. Daniel was in no position to enforce it, and he had to know that, which only made the effort he was putting into it more obvious. "Then'll lay down. Promise."

Johnny didn't like it. Yeah, he'd hit his back and shoulder on that little slide down the mountain, but he wasn't hurt. A little banged up, sure, a little scratched up, maybe, a bruised bone or two, probably, a little headache trying to rip his skull open from the inside out, definitely, but he was fine. They didn't have time to waste on him.

But there was no convincing Daniel of that until he'd seen it for himself. And the argument was already taking a toll on him. Not only was Daniel breathing too hard and too fast, but he was also doing it way too loudly.

"Okay," Johnny agreed reluctantly, holding his hands up in surrender. He turned and knelt next to Daniel, with his back to him. "Fine. If it makes you feel better, you can play nurse."

"No different than … you've been doing." Daniel settled his back against the tree. "Lift your shirt."

Johnny sighed as he reached over his shoulder with his right hand, grabbed the back of his t-shirt, and pulled it up. "I really don't think you need to do this," he tried again. "You're the one who's hurt here, buddy. Not me."

Daniel pressed his fingers lightly against Johnny's lower back, just to the side of his spine and above his right hip. Johnny honest-to-God yelped.

"Yeah," Daniel said, obviously not too wiped to be sarcastic. "You're not hurt."

"What the hell was that?" Johnny demanded. Daniel moved his hand to different parts of his back, pressing his fingers against each of them in turn. "Ow. Would you stop — ow!" He tried to see what Daniel was doing, but he couldn't turn his head that far. "Seriously, what the hell? Did you just wanna find out where it hurts so you could poke it?"

Daniel snorted. "That's your kidney. Tough guy," he said. "Gonna be pissin' blood. For a week."

"Yeah, well, somebody let me fall down a mountain and slam into a tree," he shot back. He cringed the second the words left his mouth. Making Daniel feel guilty about his little tumble wouldn't help. He sighed.

Daniel looked him over as best he could. "Hurt anywhere else? Head? Side? Shoulder?"

Johnny shook his head carefully. Telling Daniel the truth would mean he'd spend more time worrying about Johnny when he should be worried about himself. Besides, there was nothing he could do to fix them, anyway. He'd take some aspirin or something for the headache when Daniel wasn't looking, and as for his shoulder and side, well, he'd bruised his collarbone and ribs before. He knew what they felt like. He'd just have to be careful.

"How does the rest of me look?"

Daniel grinned tiredly. "Not touching. That one." He leaned back and heaved in several more breaths before speaking again. "Few scratches. Bunch more bruises. No blood."

"Good. You've lost more than enough for the both of us." Johnny pulled his shirt down and turned around. "Are you done now?"

Daniel nodded, but his eyes were already closing. Whatever reserves he'd been forcing himself to run on were running out — fast. He slumped to the side.

"Hey." Johnny put his hand on his shoulder and kept him from toppling over. "Lay down before you fall down. Again."

Daniel let Johnny lower him to the ground. Johnny didn't understand what was happening. Ten minutes earlier, Daniel had been more awake and alert than he'd been in over an hour, and his skin had been cool to the touch. But that clarity was gone, and his temperature was already on the rise again. He was in worse shape than he'd been in before they'd jumped, if that was possible.

Johnny didn't know how or why Daniel was going downhill so fast. Had he gotten hurt when they jumped? Had he not been able to stop himself from gasping when they went under? Had he inhaled some water? What kind of bugs and germs and bacteria lived in that lake? Had something gotten into that wound? Was it getting infected from the outside, too?

Johnny had to get him the hell off that mountain.

"Easy," he said, as Daniel's head came to rest against the sleeping bag. "It's okay." He put the palm of his hand against Daniel's chest, feeling the rapid pounding of his heart and counting the quick, shallow breaths. "You need to calm down."

Daniel swallowed and tried to slow his breathing, but it didn't work. "Don't."

Johnny waited for him to finish his thought, but after several seconds of silence, he knew there were no more words coming. "Don't what?" Daniel's eyes slid closed, and Johnny tapped his cheek. "Nope, don't do that. Keep those open. Stay with me here, Daniel. Talk to me."

Daniel snapped his eyes open and nodded. Then he wrapped both arms around his abdomen, rolled to his side, and curled his right leg toward his stomach. "Don't feel good."

"Ya don't say." Johnny put one hand on Daniel's arm and rolled him to his back again. "Calm down," he said as he gently pulled Daniel's arms away. "Relax."

Daniel gasped when Johnny pressed his leg back to the ground. "Hurts," he protested.

"I know. I know it does. But one thing at a time, okay?" He put his hand on Daniel's chest again. "First things first, you keep breathing like that, you are gonna pass out. You need to slow down." The memory of Daniel and Robby standing next to the lake flashed into his mind. "What about that thing you were doing with Robby? That meditation thing? Would that help?"

"Can't. Can't focus." He was breathing faster than he had been. "Hurts." It was harder for him to get that word out than it had been the first time. "What's wrong? With me?" There were a thousand answers to that question, none of them good, but the most immediate was that he was starting to panic. "Johnny? What …?" He wasn't just shivering anymore, and it wasn't just a matter of him being cold. His whole body was shaking, and his eyes were rolling back.

"Daniel! Look at me!" Johnny commanded. Daniel's eyes were open, but barely so, and he wasn't focusing them on anything. Johnny leaned over him and put his hands on either side of his face, ignoring the heat that rose from Daniel's skin. "Look at me." He repeated the words much more gently. Daniel blinked at him. "Breathe with me." He had no idea what he was doing. He was making it up as he went, and he was running out of ideas as quickly as Daniel was running out of oxygen. "Slow. Down. Now."

Daniel's attempts at matching his breathing to Johnny's exaggerated inhales and exhales did not end well. He was borderline hysterical, and if he wasn't hyperventilating, he was damn close to it.

"Okay, listen to my voice. Do you hear me?"

Daniel nodded weakly.

"Just breathe," he said. "Listen to me and breathe. Easiest thing you've ever done. Breathe in. Breathe out." He forced himself to speak calmly, and he pushed his rising fear down. It was a last-ditch effort before he threw Daniel over his shoulder and ran for the car.

Daniel's eyes fluttered closed again, and when they did, his entire face changed. The tension in his facial muscles eased, the creases around his eyes smoothed, and then his whole body relaxed. And though his chest was still catching and shuddering, his breaths were much slower and deeper.

"In and out. That's it. Breathe in. Breathe out." Johnny didn't even know what he was doing, let alone why it was working, but he wouldn't question it. He'd actually managed to do something right.

After a few minutes, Daniel looked up. His eyes were glazed, cloudy, and filled with fear, exhaustion and confusion. He'd gotten through it, and his breathing was better. But whatever was keeping him going, he was hanging onto it by his fingernails, and he was slipping. He wouldn't hold on much longer.

Johnny patted Daniel's shoulder lightly. "That's good. Just keep it up. Don't lose it. I gotta go get something. I'll be right back."

"'kay."

Johnny pushed himself to his feet, ran back to the tent, and grabbed the first aid kit and two bottles of water from the cooler. He stepped over Daniel's legs, knelt at his left side, put the box on the ground, and flipped the lid open. "Okay, Florence. My turn."

He pushed the red jacket out of his way, unzipped the sweatshirt, and moved it aside, too. As he reached for the strips of t-shirt that held the makeshift bandage in place, he looked up at Daniel's barely-open eyes once more.

"You ready for this?"

Daniel nodded sluggishly.

Johnny untied the bindings and let them fall to the ground. Then he peeled the folded-up t-shirt away carefully. It was sopping wet, and it wasn't stuck to either Daniel's skin or the wound, but he still expected some kind of reaction. He didn't get one. At least, he didn't get one from Daniel, but he got one from his own stomach. He gagged, but he managed to keep himself from throwing up.

No wonder Daniel's temperature was going back up so fast. Johnny had no way of knowing what direction that infection was coming from, inside out or outside in, but it didn't matter. Because wherever it had started, it was going everywhere.

Johnny swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat, and he turned away. "You got Tylenol in this first aid kit of yours?"

He started digging through the box frantically, shoving and tossing things he didn't need out of his way. He was in a hurry, but he wasn't desperate. No. Not scared at all. No way. "Ibuprofen? Aspirin? Anything?" He realized Daniel wasn't answering, and he glanced over his shoulder. "Because you're gonna need …" He let the sentence fall off when he realized there was no point in finishing it. There was no one to hear or answer him anyway.

Daniel was out cold.

"Shit."

He turned back to the first aid kit and resumed his digging, finally willing to admit that scared was an accurate description. Possibly even getting close to almost terrified. He found a bottle of Tylenol, clean dressings, bandages, antibacterial cream, tape and a bottle of peroxide. He pulled the latter from the box slowly, debating whether he should use it. He remembered hearing something about peroxide being a bad thing, but he also remembered his mom using a hell of a lot of the stuff. Every time he wrecked his bike or busted open an eyebrow, she'd pulled that brown bottle out of the medicine cabinet. How bad could it be if moms used it on their kids?

He didn't remember it doing much worse than stinging, but he'd never had a hole in him as large or deep as the one Daniel had. He decided whatever harm it might cause would be worth whatever good it may do, and he put it on the ground next to his knee. Everything else, he arranged on top of the box, so it would be easy to get to when he needed it. Just before he twisted the lid on the peroxide, the bottle of Tylenol caught his eye. It looked rather pitiful and pathetic, sitting there with its plain white bottle and red cap. It was so simple, so basic, and it could be bought at any store in the country. It might bring Daniel's fever down, but what about the pain?

It had taken him long enough to recover from being patched up the first time. How much worse would it be the second? There was no way Tylenol would be strong enough to touch it. Johnny stood up, jumped over to his own bag, and unzipped it. He suspected it would take a hell of a lot more than a half-pint that time, so he was glad he'd brought the fifth. He ran back to Daniel, knelt back down, and put the bottle on the ground.

"Not what I planned to do with all my booze, ya know." He was talking to himself, but the silence was starting to get to him. "Just so ya know, I'm running a tab for you. You're paying me back for all this." He picked up one of the water bottles and opened it.

He took a deep breath and prepared himself for what he was about to do. He could hardly stomach the sight of Daniel's wound — the curled-up edges of the swollen skin, the streaks of not just red but purple and black that radiated from it, the vaguely orangish mix of blood and pus that oozed from it and spilled out over his stomach and side. He tried to swallow the bile that rose into his mouth, but it refused to go down, so he turned his head and spat it out.

How was he going to clean and bandage a wound he couldn't even look at without wanting to puke?

 _'Stop screwing around.'_

 _'I'm not!'_

He reached back into the box with his other hand, grabbed a pack of dressings, and ripped it open with his teeth. "Yeah. You owe me booze." He picked up the one-sided conversation where he'd left off. It was absolute nonsense, but it was better than listening to that voice in his head again. "You're buying me the good stuff, though." He poured some water on the gauze in his hand, and he took two deep breaths before he made himself start wiping the skin around the wound. "Real Scotch. From Scotland. The expensive stuff. What's it called?"

With the surface cleaned, he put the lid back on the water and opened the peroxide. He didn't bother with the gauze, thinking it better to get it over with as soon as possible. He tipped the bottle and dumped it directly on the swollen, oozing hole in Daniel's side. The red-tinged infection erupted into a swirling mass of orange-tinted bubbles. "Glenfarc—"

He didn't know what surprised him more — the scream or the fist that slammed into the side of his face.

"Hey!" He shouted as he watched the bottle of peroxide go flying, spilling its contents on the ground. "LaRusso, what the hell?"

Someone had flipped that switch again, but it was a hundred times worse. Daniel was howling like a wounded animal, scrabbling his foot and hands against the ground, trying to push himself away. Every time he moved, his wound got pulled open wider, and more infection pumped out of it.

"LaRusso! Stop!"

Johnny tried to grab him and hold him still, but Daniel was still fighting, arms swinging wildly. He had to duck to avoid catching another fist with his face. Then Daniel started swiping and clawing at his wound like he was trying to rip a chunk out of his own flesh.

"Hey!" He glanced at Daniel's side. The reddish-yellow color of the pus had given way to red — dark red. The wound wasn't oozing infection anymore; blood was running from it freely. And Daniel was making it worse.

"Stop!" he cried out. "Daniel, stop!"

But Daniel didn't stop. He kept screaming, and he kept fighting, and Johnny couldn't hold him.

"You're alright, Daniel," he said. "It's okay. You're okay."

"No. No!" Daniel fought with every ounce of strength he had left, trying to get away from whatever was hurting him. "Burns! It burns!"

 _That_ was why peroxide was bad!

"Oh, shit," Johnny muttered. "Okay. I got it. I'm gonna fix it. Let me …" He did everything he remembered his mom doing to make that burning sting go away. He tried waving his hand over it, tried using the last of the water from the open bottle to wash it away. He even tried blowing on it. None of it helped.

Nothing was working, and he was out of ideas. He couldn't make it stop; he could only try to make it easier. So he knelt behind Daniel, hauled him up from the ground, pulled his back against his chest, and pinned his arms to his sides. He could only hope to keep him from hurting himself worse while he screamed and struggled his way through Johnny's latest massive fuck up.

And pray that Mike was still too far away to hear him.

He whispered the same stupid platitudes in Daniel's ear he'd used earlier. "It's okay. You're okay." He didn't know if Daniel could hear a word he was saying, but it was all he had to offer. "I'm right here. I got ya."

Daniel's voice gave out before the pain did. His screams became broken and breathy, and then they became silent. He dragged frantic gasps of air into his lungs, and the effort they'd both put into getting his breathing fixed had been in vain. He clutched at the back of Johnny's shirt with one hand and gripped his arm with the other. He turned his head to the side, buried his face in Johnny's shoulder, and let out one last weak, desperate cry.

"Daniel …"

The wail became a whimper and then faded away, taking the last bit of strength he had with it, and he crumpled in on himself.

"Johnny," he gasped. His shoulders were heaving, his breathing was ragged, and his whole body was racked by tremors. "Done."

"Yeah," Johnny said, rubbing his hand up and down Daniel's arm absently. "You're done. It's over. You made it." He didn't know if that was true or not, but he didn't much care if it wasn't. Making Daniel believe it was true was all that mattered. "You got this."

"No. No more." One- and two-word sentences. "Johnny. Please." One syllable words. "Done." Gasps for air between them.

"I'm. Done."

And with those two words, it became impossible for Johnny to pretend he didn't know exactly what Daniel meant.

An invisible fist slammed into Johnny's chest and drove all the air from his lungs. The same phantom hand grabbed his heart and squeezed it, tied his stomach in knots, and lodged itself in his throat, nearly choking him. It sapped all the strength from his muscles, and he couldn't keep himself upright. His legs went out from under him, and he landed on his ass on the ground. He didn't feel the jolt of pain that shot up his spine and down his legs. He didn't hear the hiss that escaped between his own teeth.

All of his attention was focused on the shaking, shuddering, sobbing Daniel LaRusso in his arms.

"Please. Stop. Just let me. Done."

"No."

He tried to put force behind it, but he failed. He was almost as desperate for it to be over as Daniel was, but he wouldn't let him give up. He couldn't. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the top of Daniel's hair. "I can't."

He didn't know how he got the words out, but he knew where they were coming from. They'd been building all day. He'd allowed himself to think and say them to himself on the cliff, and he didn't see a point in keeping them hidden anymore. Something drastic had changed between them, and he couldn't pretend it hadn't. It wasn't about the kids. It wasn't about Kreese or Mike. It wasn't about Miguel and Robby. It wasn't even about Johnny.

It was about Daniel. It always had been.

"I can't, Daniel." He tightened his arms around him. "I won't." Daniel's head rolled back and forth against Johnny's chest. "We've come too far. You've fought … God, you've fought so fucking hard. We're almost there. I can't."

He opened his eyes, tipped his head back, and stared up at the sky. The tears he'd been ignoring all those hours filled his eyes. He let his head fall forward until it was resting on Daniel's still-shaking shoulder.

"I won't let go," he whispered. "Let it out. It's okay. I'm right here, and I won't let go." If he'd thought about the words before they left his lips, he may not have spoken them, so he didn't let himself think. For the first time, he let himself feel. He didn't try to hold it back or ignore it or avoid it. He stopped pushing it away to deal with later.

He felt it all.

"The boys need you," he said.

 _'Say it.'_

"Robby needs you."

 _'Say it.'_

"And …"

 _'Say it, you fucking coward.'_

"God _**damn**_ it!"

 _'Say it!'_

He buried his face in Daniel's neck, and he allowed the tears to fall.

"So do I."

* * *

"Off the edge of the mountainside …"

He knew where they'd gone. They'd had nowhere else to go.

He'd chosen their "escape" route. He'd decided what direction they would go. He'd herded them toward the edge. And like the good little sheep they were, they'd gone right over. He may as well have pushed them. He couldn't deny he would have enjoyed that — he'd been regretting not throwing Daniel LaRusso off a cliff since he was seventeen years old — but he hadn't touched them. He hadn't revealed himself to them. He hadn't spoken to them. He had done nothing. They'd done it all for him.

They thought jumping into the lake was their idea. He did nothing to challenge that belief. They thought he'd given up and walked away. He wanted them to think that. They thought they'd evaded him. He chose to let them believe it. They thought he didn't know where they were. He took pleasure in letting them delude themselves.

He'd smiled as he watched them swim away.

"The monkey chased the weasel."

He'd known where they were going. They'd had no other options.

LaRusso couldn't walk, and Blondie was exhausted from dragging him around. They had no choice but to stop and rest. The wounds he'd inflicted on LaRusso — and the ones they'd inflicted on themselves — needed attention. There would be bandages and braces and undoubtedly more of that ridiculous bonding they'd taken to doing. Those things would take time. He knew the most direct path back, and he'd used it. He'd taken his time, and he hadn't run. He'd been in no hurry. He'd known they would still be there when he reached the camp.

He knew the area as well as LaRusso did. He probably knew it better. He'd scouted the most concealed observation points. He'd been using them all day. He settled into the closest one and watched them through the trees. LaRusso tried to tend to Blondie's back. Blondie tried to help LaRusso breathe. He smiled when he saw the first aid kit. He laughed when he saw the booze. He knew the peroxide was a wonderfully, horribly, terrifically painful idea. He looked forward to seeing LaRusso's reaction to it.

He imagined they felt safe. Surrounded by their own possessions. In a familiar place. He imagined they had hope. They'd made it that far. They were almost to the car. But hope and safety were fragile. They could be destroyed easily. They were also effective at controlling prey. They could be perverted into fear. They could be utilized as weapons. And he was enjoying the game too much to want it to end. So, he would allow them their illusion. He would grant them their false sense of security. He would even let them see what they believed was their salvation before he shattered it right in front of them.

It would make destroying them that much sweeter.

"The monkey's game is nearly done …"

The sound erupted and exploded around him. It wasn't unexpected, but it was earlier than he'd anticipated. It was familiar to him. He'd heard hundreds of people make that sound. But it was different. Stronger. Physical. Visceral. It cut through the stillness of the late afternoon. It fractured the silence of the mountain. It split the air and sent birds into the sky. It welled up through the trees, echoing and bouncing between them. He breathed it in. It sliced into his mind. Sent chills down his spine. Ripples of electricity flowed across his skin.

He didn't recognize it for what it was. Not at first. The screams continued, each more desolate than the last. They came in waves of increasing intensity. Pain. Misery. Anguish. He felt them crashing into him. Washing over him. Rising and falling and rising again. He'd felt nothing for so many years. But that sound — Daniel LaRusso surrendering to his own mortality, crying out to whatever god he believed in, raging against the dying of his light — was incredible. It reached into him. It grabbed hold of him. It captivated him. For the first time in decades, he didn't stop it. He welcomed it. He wanted it. He needed it.

He closed his eyes. He bit his lip. He spread his fingers on the ground. He felt it building. He braced himself against it.

He felt it all.

He'd spent thirty-four years keeping it at bay. Denied it. Shoved it into the same dark place he kept the memory of his failure. His defeat. Daniel LaRusso. The boy who'd destroyed him. He'd made him his prisoner. He'd locked him away. Hidden him. Buried him. Kept him for himself. But he hadn't known. He hadn't understood. He hadn't imagined the boy who'd destroyed him could become the man who set him free. Daniel LaRusso made him _feel_.

As the screams faded, he realized he never wanted that feeling to go away. He didn't want to lose it. He wanted to chase it. He didn't want it to leave him. He wanted to capture it. He didn't want it to end. He wanted to surrender himself to it.

One last weak, desperate cry rang out. Something in his mind snapped. Pleasure like he'd never felt. Release like he'd never known existed. It crested over him. It dragged him under. Daniel LaRusso's agony. His bliss. He shuddered. He gasped. He threw his head back. He fell into oblivion.

Mike Barnes opened his eyes and smiled.

"Pop! Goes the weasel."


End file.
